Sometimes the larger fish will lead the migration charge into early November, to be followed by swarms of juvenile fish in the following weeks through the end of the month – and sometimes they don’t. Areas like Cape Cod, the Islands (Martha’s Vineyard, Nantucket, Noman’s Land and Block) Fischer’s Island, Plum Island, Big Gull and Little Gull, Plum Gut, the Race, the Sluiceway and Montauk Point are some of the prime focal areas of attention for the initial weeks of the migration process.
The fish will move out of New England coastal waters and begin to migrate south and east, with 50-degree water temps kick-starting the process. The striper migration will start to generate some activity somewhere in the mid-to-end of October, depending on local water temps and coastal storms. For 2019, I am going to be totally ready for it this time around – the good old days of striper fishing are back! Where and When Some better quality bass like this 20-pounder will be mixed with the schoolies. I probably hadn’t caught as many as 450 stripers in the past 10 years compared to those two wild days. We were sticking our hands into the 49-degree water just to get some feeling back into our digits. I was dressed up like the Michelin Tire Man in an effort to thwart the cold weather (15 to 25 degrees) and still was totally chilled to the bone after only four hours of fishing each day. To say that we left them biting would be a total understatement. Last year, two intense (and extremely cold) four-hour trips the Friday and Saturday after Thanksgiving produced a total of over 450 bass for a two-man crew (125+ on Friday) and a three-man crew (325+ on Saturday). The action during the migration can be off the charts at times. Downsizing the tackle and intercepting massive schools of migrating stripers has been the ticket to enjoying an entire new level of success, with a lot less stress on the body, the boat and the equipment. While I love jigging bluefin tuna, I was able to replicate the same intensity levels in the jigging game a lot closer to home, with shorter runs to the action, more fishing time and typically more benign sea conditions. Like everything else in life, things change as we age and about 12 years ago I started “paying more attention” to those inshore waters. My name has never been associated with being a striped bass sharpie and I have been accused on more than one occasion of snobbishly zipping through the bays and near coastal waters at 25 knots, ignoring the opportunities that lurk below as I’m heading southeast to 50 fathoms and beyond. The “Good Old Days” The author, dressed for November’s chill, with a typical fall run schoolie. If chasing stripers is your thing, this is your time of the season to make it happen, with one more shot at rod-bending action before the winter doldrums finally set in before the holidays.
During that time, striper fans rely on a wide range of techniques to score their favorite gamefish, but few methods in their arsenal can be more productive than jigging them along the beach the last six weeks of the season during their annual late fall migration. The striped bass season for Northeast anglers is an eight month pursuit that starts in mid-April and runs through mid-December. Late fall striper jigging is the season’s last hurrah for many Long Island anglers.
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