If you fish saltwater in Massachusetts, you fish for striped bass. They show up in spring, feed hard all summer and fall, and pull harder for their size than almost anything else inshore. Best of all, they'll eat a fly, a plug, a jig, a chunk of bait or a live eel, so there's a way to catch them no matter how you like to fish.
How to identify a striped bass
Striped bass are unmistakable: a silvery, slightly brassy body with seven to eight dark horizontal stripes running from the gills to the tail. They have two separate dorsal fins and a broad, forked tail. Small fish under the legal slot are called schoolies; the big breeders, fish over 40 inches and 30-plus pounds, are cows.
Where they live in the Northeast
Stripers are an anadromous fish: they're born in coastal rivers (the Hudson, Chesapeake and Delaware systems produce most of our fish), then spend their lives migrating up and down the coast. In our waters they hold anywhere bait collects and current does the work for them:
- Rips and rocky points, current edges that funnel bait, like the rips off the outer Cape and the Elizabeth Islands.
- Estuaries, flats and marsh creeks, especially early and late in the season and for sight-fishing.
- Harbor structure, the islands, drop-offs and channels of Boston Harbor.
- The surf and open beaches, wherever sand eels and bait get pinned.
Seasonality: when to catch them
In Massachusetts the first keeper-class fish usually arrive in May, following bait and warming water up the coast. June is prime. Through the heat of mid-summer the biggest fish often go nocturnal or move to cooler, deeper water and rips. The fall run (September into November) is the other peak, when fish gorge ahead of the migration south and blitz bait on the surface.
Tip When you see birds diving and water erupting, you've found a blitz. Get upwind, cut the engine, and cast to the edges, running the boat through the middle of the school will put it down.
What they eat, and how to catch them
Stripers are opportunists. Match whatever bait is around and you're most of the way there. Their main forage in our waters is menhaden (bunker), mackerel, sand eels, silversides, herring, squid, crabs and worms.
Live & natural bait
Hard to beat when the fish are keyed on a specific bait. Live-line a mackerel or bunker, drift a live eel at night, or fish chunks on the bottom. Circle hooks are the rule for bait (and required by law, see below).
Lures & light tackle
Soft-plastic jigs (paddletails and sluggos), metal-lipped swimmers and pencil poppers, bucktails, and topwater walkers all produce. A medium-heavy spinning setup covers almost all of it. When fish are feeding on top, nothing is more fun than working a walk-the-dog topwater.
Fly
Stripers were made for the fly rod. A 9- or 10-weight, an intermediate line, and a box of Deceivers and Clousers will catch fish from the flats to the rips. Big bunker-profile flies come out when the cows are on menhaden.
Handling & conservation
Most of the striper fishery runs on catch-and-release, and big females are the future of the stock. Use a rubber net, keep the fish wet, support it horizontally, pinch your barbs, and revive it fully before letting go. A fish that swims off strong today is one you (or someone else) gets to catch again.