artificial bait for croakers?

[keakar]

I love croakers and would love to catch them but I hate the hard head catfish and stingrays that come with using market shrimp for bait so is there anyone who successfully goes out and targets croakers with small artificial baits?

I grew up catching them off piers at night on market shrimp along with hard heads and stingrays but I don't want to be bothered with the trash fish that comes with dead bait fishing.

are they strictly a fish you must use some kind of meat to catch or can you have good success only with small artificial baits? (no live bait)

truthfully I wouldn't know where to start or what to use or how to target them so even though I fished all my life I never sought out to catch croakers in the marsh, it just kinda happened by accident when I was dead meat fishing for reds.

I would be targeting them in the golden meadow / leeville area