it depends what bay, what time of year and location, for the summer time i would use a top and bottom rig with size 1 or 2 hooks with either squid, clam, grass shrimp, or shedder crab for bait, the back bays get full of croakers, kingfish, blowfish, and a bunch of other species, you can also throw a bucktail and bounce it in off the bottom for fluke, or throw small metals for blue fish, you can use spot and croaker for bait either live or chunked on a fish finder rig, the list of different things you can try could fill a book but these are a few tactics that have worked well for me in the past,
i use 20-30 lb braid or 10-12 lb mono on my back bay rods on a light to medium 7' rod
