NickJ
I have been hearing that Silverwood is making a decent comeback lately. Some guys from the area sent some nice pics of stripers to 25lbs to Mike Shaw a few months ago. You can see them on the msslammer.com site. Stripers are big and like a bit bait, so 9 or 12" is appropriate. If you are just going to buy one or two baits I would probably buy a wooden bait just because stripers will rip to shreds the big rubber ones.

-Rob