Surfcasters are entering the glory days now that November has hit and the Fall Run of stripers is invading Jersey waters in full force.

The surf game is one of a run and gun approach on the sands now, with beach buggies hopping streets and driving the sands to chase down schools of feeding bass. There are plenty of offerings to toss for linesiders, but no doubt you can’t leave home without an array of swimming plugs in your surf bag. First of all, start with a solid surf bag. I employ the use of a Canyon 6 tube bag, but other options include ones made by TAK, Shimano, and ODM. You don’t want to be lugging something too big and bulky so stick with the minimal amount of tubes and weight.

Standard surf plugs start with the tried and true Bomber Long-A 16 and Bomber A-Salt series plugs. Color patterns that get a lot of love include Chickenscratch, Wonderbread and School Bus for sunup hours and Black or Blurple during the night hours. The hot new plug on the scene in recent years has been the Daiwa SP Minnow. Coming in both floating and sinking models, hot colors I’ve had luck with are Sand Eel, Bone and Laser Green Shiner. You can scale down the size of the plug if smaller fish are around. Yo-Zuri’s Crystal Minnow series hits the mark, as do the Cotton Cordell Redfins, and the old school Mambo Minnow, now made by Stillwater lures.

Jersey prides itself on its community of custom wooden plug manufacturers and there are myriad plugmakers with varying sizes, colors and styles. A few standards for the plug bag include Gibb’s Danny surface swimmer and the Super Strike Zig Zag darter. The custom plugs are designed to be slow rolled and better mimic large adult menhaden whereas the other plugs mimic profiles of mullet, spearing, sand eels and smaller bunker can be reeled in at a slow to moderate pace. The key to fishing any plug for bass is to fish the proper zones in deep sloughs, cuts and inside the sand bars, and to work them slowly as bass tend to like presentations they can easily pounce upon. Work the morning and evening hours, but know that most serious action comes during the dark hours, so plan your outings accordingly. Best advice to follow as well is to use lighter colored plugs when the sun is up, and go dark when fishing at night.