Every fall the great migration pulls the coast’s striped bass south, but not all of them leave. A pocket of small fish, mostly schoolies, holds over the winter in the warmest, most sheltered water it can find. Learn where those pockets are and how to tempt a cold, sluggish fish, and you can catch striped bass around Boston in months when most anglers assume the season is over.
Where the fish are
Holdovers chase warmth and shelter. The classic spots are warm-water outflows (power-plant and industrial discharges that keep a plume of water a few degrees warmer than the sea), the back ends of estuaries and salt ponds that soak up winter sun on a rising tide, and urban tidal rivers like the Charles and the back reaches of Boston Harbor. These are schoolie factories, not places you fish for a cow, so scale your expectations to fish in the teens and low twenties of inches and enjoy them for what they are.
When it is best
Holdovers can be caught right through the coldest months, but the bite tracks the temperature. Your best windows are the warm afternoons of a mild spell and the hours around a moving tide, especially the first push of water warmed by sun or an outflow. As the days lengthen these same backwaters warm first and stack fish, and they hand off seamlessly to the first migratory bass of spring. See the seasonal calendar for the wider run timing.
How to catch them
- Go small. Cold-water schoolies want a little meal, not a mouthful. Small soft plastics on a light jighead, a small Clouser, a sand eel fly or a grass shrimp fly all match the tiny bait these fish are picking at.
- Slow everything down. A cold striper will not chase. Creep your retrieve, let the fly or plastic sink and swing along the bottom, and give the fish plenty of time to commit.
- Fish the warm water. Work the edge of an outflow plume, the dark mud that soaks up sun, and the deeper holes where fish stack. A stream thermometer earns its keep: a two-degree edge is a big deal in winter.
Tip A cheap stream thermometer is the holdover angler’s secret weapon. Move around and take readings until you find the warmest water you can, then slow down and fish it hard, because that is almost certainly where the fish are stacked.
Handle them with extra care
A fish caught in frigid water is already stressed, and cold, dry air is hard on gills and eyes. Keep these fish wet and out of the air, unhook them in the water or over the net, and send them off quickly. Pinch your barbs to make releases fast. See conservation and fish handling for the details, because a healthy holdover is a fish that spawns and grows into next season’s keeper.
Get the first bend of the year
Holdover and early-season bass are a great excuse to shake off the winter and get back on the water. If you want to be there for the first striped bass of the year, reach out and we will watch the water and the calendar and get you out when the fish turn on.