The Northeast provides the ultimate striped bass habitat. The convergence of the warm Gulf Stream and the cool Labrador Current creates a uniquely fertile environment that sustains a large variety of baitfish both offshore and inshore. When you add the jagged northeast coastline, strong tides, scattered rocky bottoms, estuarine back-bays and river outlets, you end up with a super highway for hungry stripers. With the exception of some year-round holdovers, striped bass are most heavily targeted during two major phases of their migratory movements — the spring and fall.
In the spring, the bass have just finished spawning and begin migrating north to replenish some much needed calories by feeding on larger baitfish like herring, menhaden and squid. During this migration the striped bass tend to break off into smaller groups and push up into the shallow warmer waters of the back bays and estuarine environments where they can hunt and feed during the stronger phases of the tide. The fish cover a lot of ground, working specific structure points and breaks in the tide where they can ambush pods of bait. During this spring influx the fish are slightly low on gas and while they are feeding actively, they are a little more reserved.
When the warm days of summer come to a swift end, the winds begin to shift, the days become shorter and the nights grow colder. As if flipping a switch this change triggers an unprecedented chain of events. Hordes of bait, including herring, peanut menhaden, anchovies, butterfish and mackerel flood the inshore coastline in massive schools of what I like to call “meat clouds!”
The internal timers inside the stripers activate and they begin to vacate their summer spots and form large schools of their own. As they ready for the long journey south to the winter grounds they have one thing on their mind, food! This equation creates a much more intense scenario than the spring run and the waters become a feeding frenzy.
FALL TACTICS
Just because the fish are feeding hard in the fall does not me you can place a sock on a hook and get tight. It’s best to take a page out of the fly anglers handbook and focus on matching the hatch. The fall stripers key in on specific baits and will literally get tunnel vision and become oblivious to any other objects in their path.
Fancy paint jobs, sexy twitching, rattles, big eyes, it doesn’t matter. If your offering doesn’t match the appearance and or behavior of the forage at hand, you’ll be in for a short day on the water and a long night at the bar. Look at the bait the fish are feeding on in the surf or out into the water ahead of you and try to match the bait’s profile, colors or movements (or all three) for better results.
Targeting stripers will vary with time of day, technique and tide phase. As a casting, light-tackle enthusiast, I enjoy targeting these fish during the day during the harder phases of the tide. We’ll cast into the penned up bait and score multiple hook ups. When the tides weaken we change to a more leapfrog approach. We’ll motor up-sea of the action, take the boat out of gear and quietly drift directly into the path of our targets. We’ll get tight on as many as time allows, then motor back around the school in a wide arc so we don’t disrupt their movements or behavior. Continue reading – http://www.fishtrack.com/features/how-to-catch-migrating-striped-bass_132308