I had a strange experience this past weekend in trying catch some stripers on topwater. While the activity scattered, there was enough of it going on around us along with seeing actual fish coming out of the water it wasn�t just rolling carp. We litterally threw every lure, topwater, slabs, umbrella, rattle traps, ect except live bait, and couldn�t manage a bite. Has anyone else experienced this before and do you have a go to lure when they�re acting like this? We were graphing plenty of fish on the sonar too.

7 inch Redfin waked close to the bank around points islands etc.

Tandem speck rigs under a popping cork. Sometimes you can also work a slab or jigs with sharp erratic jerks slow or fast, jek it real hard and let flutter a bit all the way back to the boat

I am going to guess that you were not matching the bait that they were feeding on. I had an experience once on Texoma while fishing with the ex. We got out a little late. She did not like getting up at the crack of dawn. I went to one of my favorite places to catch bait. Lots of little ones. I am talking the kind that stick in the net. I was after the larger shad. This was mid June. Finally located the 6" threadfins and was in heaven. We went out to tabletop and sat on top of huge schools. We sat there for 2 hours and the rods tips just vibrated. After about 5 minutes you would pull the shad up and it was battered, dead and missing scales. Finally said the heck with and tried one of the small ones that had accidently dropped in the bait tank. Bam in like 30 minutes or less we went through the 6 little shad we had. Oh, and these were not 12" stripers.

We have been catching lots of Stripers on these baits right on the top of the water. I just don�t have any photos of the stripers.