I explained that reaction strike business to at least a half dozen people on the coast this slow striper season .  At times, with little bait, stripers were reacting to fast movement, as they were having trouble locating easy prey. If you ripped your fly in with 3 foot, lightning  rapid strips you got bit. Use the standard little 1' medium speed pulls (what I never do) , and you got the stripe. Some guys took my advice, others not. The best was a girl and her boyfriend, whom she outfished  3-0 because she got the sense of what I said. He went with what guys do when the fishing is dumb azz easy because there's a school of small stripers on a school of bait  and they are competing and hyper-aggressive. I'm trying to avoid the little ones.
   For trout in rivers, i often throw to the bank and mend downstream to accelerate the fly out of a bank run, rather than stall it with a mend upstream. People have watched me do this and said what I was doing was wrong. I won a one-fly contest doing just this, so it pays to be wrong sometimes. If I was a baitfish in the wrong place at the wrong time, I think I'd get out of Dodge. Big trout are use to them reacting that way.
    I use rabbit, marabou, ostrich herl, rubber, schlappen, and various soft hackles to create movement, might as well figure ways to add more mechanically. And I agree with HT. With a few exceptions, the window closes sometime in mid to late Nov. and opens back up for the droppies. Thanks for the replies.

this is actually a great question and think it deserves some more discussion and learning, such as what Fichy just gave me..
I say the window opens back up pre spawn, sometimes as early as late Feb if the sun is high and ticks that temp in some areas back up a few degs on the water in the afternoon..  I have had success with the streamer (SRS) if the winter starts to break up early and the steelhead start to spawn early.. I also think you (fichy) seen some chrome chasing baitfish in a warm feb day after a mild winter..
While I didn't , don't strip my fly, rather just swung it, I don't see why stripping wouldn't be effective..
Another reason for my march-april timing is largely due to the amount of salmon  fry in the river.. When Fran V says it's his #1 spring pattern from back in the late 80's-90's  while he was guiding, well guess what, I listened and bought his book about the Salmon River and patterns..
I believe he also held (holds) the world record coho on 2# tippet, at least it was back then ..
Finally a third element into this is that my Dad, the great one, didn't like using bait.. He liked casting spinners, spoons and lures for steelhead, he caught plenty from mid march-april while I struggled with egg sacs & flies (on spinning rod) ..  Of course some of his favorites were panther Martin single hook with beads on the lure shank before the hook, his spoons were blue fox pixie and little cleo, lures were of course rapala in rainbow trout..  
 
Now granted, you fly guys can whip loops around me /cast and swing patterns FAR better then this old spinner so some things I may say are irrelevant to the knowledge you all possess.. The words you type and speak are ALL influential to me..

Hardly, HT. You're one of my favorite fishing buddies of all time, because of your abilities to fish and to learn.  What you said about ripping the Rapalas made me smile. The guys on the coast with surfcasting rigs never get told a thing by me. Not that we don't share information, actually we share tons about fish movements, where they've been at what part of the tide, what bait we've been seeing etc.... They don't need to be told to rip them plugs!  I fish more like a spin guy with a fly rod. I'm happy I fit with the surf guys , just like I fit with guys fishing Rapalas down south for big browns and around here for same.  I LOVE to fly fish, it's a complete and total  passion, but I still think like the little kid with the spinning rod, hiding in the bank-side bushes watching fish, flipping over rocks, and hoping some day I'll get a little part of the mystery.  I've learned some about reading seams by watching pinners, learned a lot about the river in general and how aggressive steel can be riding in the front seat with 3 fan. Part of the reason for this thread is that experience.  Learn from whomever you can, wherever you can. Long as it's not some BS deal like 1/0 estaz.  Rain Wed. Should have some room!

pafisher

Lucky13
If I'm fishing a zonker, or a big intruder, I strip back once in a while as HT says to maybe wake them up.  But most of the time I'm fishing smaller wet flies, or concoctions designed to have some action on a dead drift and swing, so I just mends and swing.  Good article on this (active presentations) in the new Flyfisherman, though.

According to that article you send your dog for a swim in the pool,that stirs them up and then they get interested in your strip retrieve,if you don't have a dog throwing rocks at them works too!Since my Boxer dog doesn't care for swimming I guess it's rocks for me

Stoning, herding, driving are against the law in NYS.  I don't know about dog swimming !

I have a smallie stream that runs next to  the canal.
It has a power house to run the locks that flows into it.
Emeralds come thru it and get caught in the whirlpool getting hurt or confused.
I outfish the bait fishers because I actively ripped my streamer.
Dead drift or slow pulls get nothing but a foot long yank while popping the rod drives them crazy.
Learned it from a bait flinging friend who was the master.
I think it looks more like the baitfish than the live bait under a bobber or just bouncing along bottom.
 

Hot Tuna, you're spot on in regards to SR pluggers "waking up" a pool. Always glad to have them plug the pool I'm fishing. Heck, even drift boats going by will get a couple active.
PerchEyes

fichy, where do you striper fish?
One of my favorite ways to spin fish stripers on Nantucket with a Bomber is to pull rod to side two feet, retrieve (lure pauses) and repeat. Similar motion to stripping a fly.
 

PE,The Ma. coast north of Beantown-  Cape Ann, and Plum Island Sound,  Use to fish South County RI, and have  chased them from Maine to the Chesapeake. Though, I've pretty much given up the surf stick, I'm no stranger to Bombers. Ever try a fly on the surf stick? Something I picked up in RI from one of the crazy people who fish the end of the breachways on the incoming is using a baseball with an eyelet bolted through it. About 4 feet of leader and a Rhody flatwing fly or any 5-7" salt pattern you like. Casts a mile and you rip it in pretty much as you described.  It doesn't hurt to keep a few small flies and have a surface plug with the rear hooks removed when they key on little bait, like smaller sand eels, peanut bunker and juvy herring.

I had tried using a sand eel type fly as a dropper in front of a lure. Knew many that swore by that setup but didn't work well for me as the dropper would eventually wrap around the main line. Also did some fly fishing for stripers but was tough in heavy surf and wind, Was pretty successful for albies when conditions were right. Pretty exciting to get an albie to smack it and take 100 ft of flyline out of the basket in a blink of the eye.

I rarely get shots at albies, not much shore action for them north,  better off the islands. Need to get to Nantucket and the Vineyard someday. Have got them from a boat. I have got a bonita from shore.  I decide to go, I'll be asking some questions. If you try throwing a fly behind a plug again, try a clouser. The weight and pretty sparse materials (good for a sand eel imitation) make it follow the lure out and behave, as they don't have as much wind resistance and some weight to help them fly on their own.