When do striped bass run

A post shared by Jon Borselli jborselli A post shared by Joshua Dionne fishindad When are you guys gonna start a Delaware fishing report? Striper fishermen do exist in DE too but I see you leave us out of your report! We have feelings too…Lol! That would be awesome.. A mid Delaware bay report would be great too as the spawn is about to be in full swing mid April — mid May. Your email address will not be published. Search this website: Enter. View this post on Instagram. In the fall, as the water cools, the stripers head south again.

This often coincides with various baitfish, including peanut bunker and silversides, coming out of the bays and into the ocean. The stripers, anxious to fatten up for the winter ahead are hungry, and when they meet up with the emerging bait pods, blitzes can occur all along the coast.

Look for the birds. The fall migration extends into December along the New Jersey coast and even into January down around Virginia. Most of the migrating stripers end up back down in the deeper waters off of the VA and NC coasts, where they spend the winter. For their first few years stripers stay around the local rivers, bays and estuaries where they were born.

They begin feeding in the spring when the water temperatures get above 45 degrees F. They can be caught during the day in the early spring as they seek the warmer waters in the shallows. As the spring progresses and the water warms, they will move out and hang around the ocean beaches. During the summer they seek deeper cooler water. Their annual spawning destination remains the same throughout their reproductive life. Upon arrival at their traditional spawning spot, a female will release up to 3 million eggs for males to fertilize.

Both their jobs complete, they soon head back to the Atlantic. The eggs drift with the current and hatch if lucky within days. Juvenile stripers will mature in the Hudson for as long as 2 years before following their parents to the ocean, where they are the mainstay of a substantial sport-fishing industry spanning from New England to Florida.

The sight of sea lice means that the striper season has begun, and the flood gates are about to open. Even though most of the larger fish have departed Jersey for northern waters, summer is my favorite time to fish for stripers. I get into weakfish, stargazers, fluke, bluefish and, of course, striped bass. In the summer, I usually go for outgoing tides, just after the turn, and there must be bait in addition to structure and current. Summer is great because if you get into one bass, there are very likely a dozen others waiting to eat.

Watching them blow up on small baitfish and not take any of my offerings is frustrating, but the fish will often take a snapper-popper or a clacker rigged up with a small fly or teaser. Some of the fish will slide into surfcasting range under the cover of darkness where eels, live or rigged, reign supreme.

Fall is boom or bust. A big storm could send the fish packing before the fall blitz begins, or the bait and bass could make their migration far offshore and out of range of surf and boat anglers alike. I have moments every year when I love the fall and moments when I hate it. I follow schools of bait, sometimes for miles, along the beach, stalking that next blitz.

If the mullet really run, and they run first most of the time, a plug like the Salt Pro Minnow or Bomber Long A is my go-to. When the peanuts leave the bays and rivers, I like small glide baits and stubby metal lips.

What about sand eels? The past two years have been awesome for sand eels, so I throw A17s and A27s with green tails and my own sand eel imitation flies as teasers. Sometimes, in years like this one, it seems like every plug in my bag is just an expensive way to deliver a fly to a fish. But hey, whatever works.

By December, when the water is getting cold, I fish cut bunker overnight. Bass fishing is a feast or famine endeavor. In spring, business booms for the shops, commercial bait fishermen, and captains who all contribute to the sport.