Best Lures for Striped Bass Below the Dam (2026)

Storm WildEye Swim Shad (5 in / 6 in)

This is the lure most tailrace anglers reach for first. The internal weighting gets the shad down into the current seam without a separate jighead, and the paddletail keeps thumping even when you slow it to a crawl in heavy flow. Owners fishing it alongside other paddletails report it draws more committed strikes from stripers holding tight to the rock face, likely because the profile and thump hold together in current where lighter baits wash out. The single VMC hook is the weak point. Reviewers note it can flex on a 20-pound fish in current, so once the school is located, many anglers switch to a heavier rig. For finding fish and putting numbers in the boat, it is the one to start with.

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SPRO Bucktail Jig (1 oz - 2 oz)

When the dam is pulling hard and a swimbait blows out of the strike zone, weight is the answer, and a bucktail handles weight better than anything. The SPRO sinks fast, holds the bottom seam, and the Gamakatsu hook is sticky enough to convert short strikes. The 1.5 oz is the everyday size below most tailraces, with anglers stepping up to 2 oz when extra gates open. Tip it with a soft plastic trailer (a 4-inch Fluke works) for slow water and run it bare when the current is ripping. The bucktail does almost nothing on the fall. It has to keep swimming with the current or it just sits there and gets ignored.

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Heddon Super Spook (Bone)

First light below the dam, when stripers push shad to the surface in the slack water beside the main boil, a walked Super Spook gets blown up. Bone is the go-to color at dawn and chrome takes over once the sun is up. Fish hit it so hard you will lose a few from sheer violence, which is the whole reason people throw topwater for stripers. A common upgrade is swapping the stock trebles for stronger ones, since reviewers report the factory hooks straighten on a good fish in current. This is a window lure. It shines for the first ninety minutes and after the surface action dies it goes back in the box.

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Gamakatsu Octopus Circle Hook (4/0 - 6/0)

When the bite gets tough and artificials get ignored, a live shad on a circle hook drifted through the boil is the reliable fallback. Hook a threadfin through the nose with a 5/0 and let the current carry it naturally past the fish. The circle design means stripers hook themselves in the corner of the mouth, which matters for released fish because it keeps them from being gut-hooked. It takes a cast net and a livewell to run this rig, so it is more setup than throwing a swimbait. On a high-pressure tailrace where everyone is slinging the same paddletail, a live bait drifting naturally is often the difference between a slow day and a full cooler.

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Cotton Cordell Pencil Popper

A pencil popper covers water faster than almost anything and it carries a long way on the cast, which matters when stripers are busting shad fifty yards out and there is no getting the boat closer to the dam. Whip the rod tip and it spits and chugs across the surface. It works as a search tool to locate active schools, and many anglers then switch to a swimbait once the fish are pinned down. The treble hooks are mediocre out of the box and the lure is not subtle, so on calm clear days the fish get a good look and refuse it. On a windy chop below the dam, though, it will find fish when nothing else can reach them.

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Zoom Super Fluke (Pearl White)

The Fluke is the cheapest way to put a realistic shad profile in front of a tailrace striper, and at pennies a bait, snapping one off in the rocks does not sting. Rig it on a 1/2 oz to 1 oz jighead depending on flow and let it glide through the current seam with a slow twitch. The darting action mimics a dying shad better than a steady-thumping paddletail, which can be exactly what fish want when they are gorged and lazy. The downside is durability. A pack of ten can disappear in a single good session because the soft body shreds. Buy them by the bag.

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Cotton Cordell Gay Blade (1/2 oz)

Late fall and winter, when stripers stack deep below the dam and ignore moving baits up high, a blade bait fished vertically gets bit. Drop it to the bottom and rip it up with a sharp lift, then let it flutter back down on a tight line. The hard vibration triggers reaction strikes from cold, sluggish fish that will not chase. It is a specialist tool. In summer, when fish are up in the current chasing shad, the blade mostly gathers dust. The two treble hooks foul on each other and snag bottom constantly, so it is a frustrating lure to fish in the rocks, but in cold water few baits trigger those deep, lethargic fish the same way.

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Frequently Asked Questions