Here is a key to consider when fishing for smart hybrid striped bass in clear water. If they can see you, game over. Even when throwing chum in the water, they know your there and they are smart. You can catch those fish on natural looking lures and baits all day long as long as they dont see or hear or feel you near. Think Boone and Crocket deer hunting, not button buck hunting when targeting smart fish in clear water.
Oftentimes a shiner or fathead or nightcrawler fished with no weight or bobber is deadly when the fish dont know your around. Also stick baits, spinners, topwater chugs, etc.
Now if you must let the striper know you are in the area and you want to catch alot of them, than you should use a chunk of chicken liver with no weight. Just gently loft it out into the zone and they will demolish it on impact. Then the chicken liver breaks up into little pieces once the first fish hits it acting as a major chum for the rest of the school to be in feeding frenzy mode. When you cast the second time they are ready to eat and so on so forth. When fishing with multiple people on the same school of striper I recommend just using one rod at a time because you can catch them all day long one at a time, but if you all go out chucking liver you will spread them out and all will catch one or two, but overall you wont be nearly as effective as one at a time from the same spot about every 3-5 minutes.
