Bass Awakening

The show season will soon begin to wind down and the official beginning of spring is but a month away. And then April will bring with it the first signs of striped bass being caught off the jersey Shore, J-Bay, Island’s west end, Little Neck Bay and many of the shallow back-water areas that awaken to the Spring’s warming sun. Increasing bass activity will also take place in many of the more predominant fresh water rivers around the tri-state area: Delaware River, Hudson River, Connecticut, Thames and Housatonic Rivers. So, it’s never too early to prepare for the seasonal renaissance and return of stripers.

Most of the bass that visit Long Island waters originate from either the Chesapeake River or Hudson River stocks. Stripers are classified as anadromous, meaning they live predominantly in saltwater but return from the salt to their natal freshwater rivers to spawn. Once the spawning mandate is satisfied the bass move out of those rivers and begin to move back to saltwater. They will infiltrate the inland waters and move up the Northeast coast. Starting in about mid-April bass will begin to be caught in the western most parts of Long Island and as the season progresses gradually flood into all areas around Long Island. Many will take up residence in the waters surrounding Long Island, including numerous bays and harbors, while many bass will continue their journey right up the entire length of the coast. During the fall migration huge masses of both bait and pursuing striped bass will move south to their wintering areas. When this movement occurs it seems as if every bass in the world passes through the toll gates at the east end of the Island, most notably Montauk at the tip end of the South Shore and Orient Point and the Race off the Island’s North Fork. Striped bass are essentially an inshore fish and as such provide numerous angling opportunities for near shore fly and light tackle anglers. Stripers show a marked preference for boulders, rocks…as one of its nicknames, “rockfish” implies… jetties, pilings, docks, piers, riprap and other forms of visible or submerged structure. They can also be caught in open water as well as on sand and gravel flats in literally inches of water. It may come as a surprise to some but sizable flats exist on Long Island and a growing number of fly fishermen and light tackle anglers are pursuing them in that venue. It is a sight fishing phenomenon comparable in many respects to tropical bone fishing and casting to tailing redfish in Florida.