Exciting Striped Bass Fishing

Striped bass fishing or striper fishing can be done all-year round in inshore waters on both coasts of N. America.

Striped bass or stripers are excellent sport fish, often reaching a length of over 4 ft. and weights of over 60 lbs. or more. They can be caught from the shore or from the boats.

Habitat

The striped bass is an anadromous fish, meaning it lives in the sea and return to freshwater tributaries to spawn. Although they are mainly a saltwater species they also live in brackish and fresh waters, most notably in large lakes and reservoirs. During the spring these stripers migrate into freshwater to spawn.

A schooling and highly migratory fish, striped bass are often found close to shore. Likely places to look for them are bays, beaches, piers, rocks, jetties, flats and estuaries.

Diet

An opportunistic predator, the striped bass diet consists largely of small baitfish, such as menhaden, eels, herrings, smelt, anchovies, sardines, and squid. They also eat crabs, sea worms, sandworms, bloodworms, clams and mussels.

Fishing Tips and Techniques

They can be caught with dead (cut or whole) or live bait, lures or streamer flies. All kinds of fishing methods known to anglers are used to catch them from the shore or on a boat. Some of the fishing methods are bottom-fishing, jigging, popping, drifting, trolling and casting.

Fly fishing will be fun, when stripers or “rockfish” as they are sometimes called, appear on the surface or in shallow waters. A #9 saltwater fly fishing outfit will able to do the job well.

Surf fishing for stripers is also very popular. A 12 foot tip-action rod combined with a fixed spool or multiplier reel, spooled with 15-20 lbs mono line is an adequate surf casting outfit. As stripers do not have teeth, you can use a mono leader of 30 lbs test.

Although most striped bass fishing is done from the shore, the most effective way is from a boat. Drifting live bait with a simple float-rig from a boat is the most productive method for taking stripers.

The boat must be anchored in such a manner that the bait is drifted towards a fish-holding area with the help of the tide and current, such as rock-outcrops, a bridge, a pier or a jetty. And also look-out for sandbanks, drop-offs and areas with fast and strong currents.

Casting and trolling with artificial lures are also good tactics to catch stripers.

Once you hook-on to a striper, you must bully it hard and fast away from getting back to the structure. The striped bass is a very strong fighter.

Bait

Striped bass are not choosey eaters. They will eat anything available that comes before them, on the surface, midwater and also on the bottom. Most types of natural bait will work.

Eels, mackerel, bunker, large sandworms or large bloodworms, squids, crabs and prawns are some of their favorite food.

Striped bass fishing is exciting, fun and relaxing. Because stripers are inshore species, you can fish for them all-year round, day or night, from the shore or near shore on a boat without having to venture far offshore.

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