Fishing now a days can often be tough due to the amount of fishing pressure that the fish have to endure. This is especially true in bass lakes around the US with tournaments and weekend anglers throwing everything under the sun at the bass, which makes them extremely shy to take lures. In these over fished lakes is where finesse fishing can be very effective.

Striped bass fishing in Pennsylvania is limited to a few locations with one of the more popular and least understood being Lake Raystown in Central PA. Raystown Lake is a large 28-mile long lake with water depths that reach over 100 feet. Raystown Lake largely is undeveloped and is miles and miles of beautiful wooded shorelines, steep cliffs, and large flats. Sounds great huh? Well Lake Raystown is also one of the toughest lakes to locate fish on a consistent basis due to it’s size and abundance of baitfish like gizzard shad, alewives, & other species of baitfish. However that doesn’t make it impossible to catch stripers and there are defiantly some monster in the lake.

Fishing for striped bass is a really popular sport as of late with more and more fishermen targeting stripers in areas such as the Chesapeake Bay, Hudson River, and many inland lakes around the country. Often stripers can be caught by boat trolling artificial lures such as bucktails, crankbaits, or umbrella rigs. However there are times when live bait is the cats meow for stripers and will often outperform artificial baits by big margins. Often you will hear reports of fishermen catching summertime stripers in the Chesapeake Bay “Live Lining” spot, or inland fishing with shad, alewives, or live trout. Slow trolling live bait for big stripers works in almost any impoundment from saltwater to freshwater.

So you're going on vacation and you thinking about purchasing a surf fishing rod or you have decided to hit the beach and doing some surf fishing in search of stripers and other surf fish. Surf fishing is one of the most enjoyable things you can do on vacation or start as a hobby. What could be better than sitting on beach and watching the waves while waiting for something to take down a rod. And that's the real thrill your waiting on something to bite and you never know what that something might be.

Fishing in the surf is a great way to spend a day or night chasing the fish that call the surf their feeding grounds. Fish such Striped Bass (rockfish), Flounder, Whiting (kingfish), Bluefish, and Sharks are just a few fish that come to the surf to feed. Targeting these fish in the surf is done generally by using bait on a rig such as a fish finder rig or a Hi-Lo rig (top bottom) with a pyramid sinker in the 4 to 10 oz range depending on wind and surf conditions. There are several different baits, which work well in the surf depending on what type of fish you are pursuing.