Imagine fishing at the mouth of a tidal river for striped bass. If it has been a great season, chances are you catching stripers of up to 25 pounds in shallow water using little more than an artificial lure. Then stop and think what happens if someone flips a switch and the fish suddenly disappear.

Then you notice that as the waters become more transparent you see fish moving along in small groups. It seems that no matter how hard you work to catch a fish, they refuse to take a second look at anything you offer them. You start to wonder what it is that they are seeing that you cannot see.

As it turned out, this was exactly what was happening. After much frustration and changing the floors down to smaller tackle, I finally caught a small fish. When I got him into the boat, he coughed up his breakfast. Then I saw it - the culprit turned out to be tiny translucent crabs.

This is one of those cases where if you are interested in catching anything at all, you definitely need to "match the hatch". This is a fairly common term used in the fly fishing world. The overall theory is if you want fish to bite, you need to find bait that is similar to what they are going after. This is pretty common, for example proud will almost always ignore something that does not mimic the current insect hatch. It is even true with saltwater species; they focus in on a certain size and type of bait and turn their nose up at anything else.

In the Northeast especially in shallow water, this is fairly common. It is even more common in salt ponds and estuaries. For instance, when the sun to warm patches in the salt ponds, fish will almost always strike at presentations that imitate the worms. They tend to ignore almost everything else. Fly fishermen typically do pretty well in this type of environment. They generally will present tiny worms that it 2 to 3 inches long. Spinning anglers, find this a little bit more difficult because lures that tiny can be difficult. The best bet is to scale down your tackle and not just the lure.

A Lunker City Slug-O in the 3” size rig makes a great substitution first in the worm. There are other soft plastic lures that will work equally as well; it does require some experimentation with bold colors and sizes.

Long known as one of the least discriminatory fishes in the ocean, the bluefish will from time to time focus on tiny baitfish and regardless of what you offer them, they simply refused to strike. This is especially common is the season grows longer and the baitfish invade the shallow waters. Fishermen will find the tackle box stocked with small spoons and soft plastics allow them to still have a great fishing day. The secret to this is to keep an eye on what the fish coughed up on the boat deck. That will help you determine what size, shape, and color they are really after.

Regardless of where your preferred saltwater fishing hole is, you liable to run into the situation at least once or twice. Regardless of how well prepared you might have thought you were, if you do not have the proper bait and tackle you will never "match the hatch".

When you are out saltwater fishing it is important to make sure you have the right supplies. Some of the most popular brands include Shimano Saltwater Reels, Penn Reels, and Daiwa Fishing Reels.