A lot of guys fish poppers on the beach. I haven't had good luck with them but Nico has caught a ton of popper fish. Mostly the cupped face type poppers.

Pencil poppers have good action in calm water but its hard to work them in the waves and hard to see them in the chop. One of the first times I went to the beach I did throw a striper special during a pretty much wide open run. Guys around me were all hooked up on poppers and I had a big striper jump completely over the bait but not eat it. So I figure they'll work but its not really ideal for you typical beach conditions.

Pretty much at the beach guys do four things... They throw either hair raisers, poppers, bomber long a type baits, or metal jigs like kastmasters and miki's. You almost never see anyone throwing swimbaits or trout plug type baits. When I caught that big hammer fish a few weeks ago some kid saw me get it and was totally surprised that a fish would eat a big hammer off the rocks. To me, its a no brainer... big hammer's look like anchovies... stripers eat tons of anchovies... therefore big hammers catch stripers. Simple huh :)