1.Stripers are anadromous.  Like salmon, they migrate from the sea to fresh water to spawn.  Unlike salmon, stripers get to do this again and again.  {Lucky stripers.}   In the Greater San Francisco Bay/Delta System, striped bass travel from as far north in the Central Valley as Butte County or as south as Merced County, to the Pacific Ocean down to Monterey or  up beyond Point Reyes.  That’s a lot of area to cover.  Fortunately this can be narrowed down to the migration periods called the Spring and Fall Runs.  Generally speaking, the Fall Run is when the stripers begin the journey to the fresh waters of the Delta and the Spring Run is when they start returning to the sea.  These events sometimes overlap (for example, late Fall Run stripers will encounter early Spring Run stripers during the wintertime) and there are moments when it’s tough to know whether a fish is coming or going.   Other factors, mostly manmade, have further corrupted the cycle.  But it’s safe enough to use this guide:

FALL…Stripers are moving from the ocean through the bay. The two top months in San Francisco and San Pablo bays are September and October.  The Delta will be slow but picking up. 
WINTER…The same schools have entered the Delta and are mostly in the deeper main channels or sloughs. December and January are good months.  In the bays, there are rather large loners who hang around all winter.
SPRING…Stripers who have traveled up to the small sloughs and waterways have spawned and are turning around.  March and April are productive in the Delta and also for the early arrivals in San Pablo Bay. 
SUMMER…Now the stripers are working through the bays and entering the ocean.  Depending on the water temperature and supply of natural bait, they will linger or quickly move on.  May and June are good in the Bay, okay in the Delta.  August marks the Summer Doldrums when most of the fish are in the ocean.  The bays are slow and the Delta is dead.

So it makes sense to be where the stripers are if you want to catch them.  Sometimes this means you have to track them daily when they are moving; other times you can follow the trend and be lucky.  Be aware of natural bait conditions, signs of birds and sea lions feeding on anchovies, for example.  Stripers are voracious and will be where the food is. 

2. Stripers are not fussy eaters.  But you don’t want to present something so weird or out of place that it turns them off.  Try to stick with baits that are normal for the area you are fishing. 

(For optimal fishing, try to have your line in the water during a "tidal turnaround." This is when the tide has topped and the water is starting to go out, or when the tide has bottomed and the water is coming in again.  Many anglers time their fishing to coincide with the last two hours of one tidal event to the first two hours of the next.  It works.  And your awareness of the tide cycles should not be limited to the ocean or bays.  The tide is important in the Delta as well.  Water movement is always a crucial element of striped bass fishing.)

Here are the top baits and where they are most effective:

Bullheads.  Live ones are best in the bays or Carquinez Strait, okay elsewhere except where the water is so fresh it kills them. Dead ones are still very good in the same areas so long as the bait is fresh and slimy.  It might be a good idea to mutilate the bait to get the scent traveling, but also keep in mind that this will attract crabs.  Use a slider rig.  Hook the bullhead through the nostrils, upper lip, dorsal fin, or even the tail.  All these ways work. 

Shiner Perch.  Great live in San Francisco Bay and the ocean.  Use a slider rig or a single-hook surf rig with very light weight. Hook through the nostrils, upper lip, or dorsal fin.  Note: it is easy to lose these delicate fish, so put a square piece of rubberband just below the hook barb.  The bait won’t slip off easily and the stripers don’t care.

 Anchovies. Great live in San Francisco Bay and the ocean. Use a slider rig. Hook placement is best in the mouth. Dead ones work well if you slice them diagonally and use elastic thread to tie them to baitholder hooks on a surf rig.  Frozen anchovies are inexpensive and very effective for attracting stripers all over their range.  They also attract the so-called “junkfish” as well as juvenile stripers and crabs. 

Threadfin Shad.  A very good natural bait in the Delta.  Live ones and dead ones should be fished on sliding rig.  For dead shad it is a good idea to slice or slash the side of the bait. 

Mudsuckers.  Like bullheads, mudsuckers are excellent live bait.  They are best usually from San Pablo Bay up through the Delta.  Again, a sliding rig is preferable.  As dead bait they are only fair. 

Other Fishy Baits. Cut sardines used to be an old time favorite for stripers in San Francisco Bay.  Sometimes herring can be effective in wintertime. 

Pile Worms.  These are probably the most widely used baits by shoreliners in San Francisco Bay.  Just stick them on a hook (a 2/0 baitholder is fine), cast, and wait.  Nothing to it.  Pile worms bite, so keep an eye on the sharp end.

Blood Worms.  Also widely used, and probably better during winter and spring in the bays.  These bite, too. 

Grass shrimp.  Live grass shrimp are good for catching stripers within the Bay System.  Frozen ones are as well, so long as they are freshly frozen and used before they turn color. 

Other Crustaceans. Ghost and mud shrimp are better live and okay dead for stripers.  They are natural sources of bait in the bays.  Crabs, especially the little green shore crabs, are often found in striper bellies, so they too would be good. Crayfish work in the Deltas, but only slightly. 

Below are two thumbnail examples of basic rigs, the surf rig (also known as the hi/lo) and the sliding rig.  Everyone has his own preference, but a good rule of thumb is to use fixed rigs for cut bait and worms, and sliding rigs for live baits or whole dead baits. 

           Surf Rig                                                   Sliding Rig