Early Spring Back Bay Stripers
Article posted on: Apr/28/00
author: Bill Wetzela
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[email protected])
I entered the water for the first time in over three months. My neoprene waders shielded me from the harsh reality of the early spring water temperatures, but the afternoon sun warmed the ebbing tide. I was fishing one of my back bay spots ? a shallow, shoreline area with submerged eel grass that can be productive from late March to well into the summer. As I worked a 3/8-ounce bucktail along the edge of the grass line, I felt the familiar bump. I put my rod tip down and reeled more slowly. Bang! I set the barbless hook when the feisty linesider made its second attempt to grab a meal. My 7-foot rod pulsated with a nice, 25-inch linesider on the line.
Early season light tackle fishing for striped bass is like no other type of shore angling. Besides the right location and the right conditions, you need different tackle, lures, and techniques.
The North Shore of Long Island comes alive with school stripers in the spring. Primarily, the bass are on their spring migration, and the western Sound is the first to see action. Linesiders will be on the move from west to east throughout the spring, taking up residence in some areas and continuing their migration from others.
Target back bay areas to locate fish. Back bay water temperatures will warm faster than more open areas due to their shallow water and muddy bottoms. It?s no secret that the back of Little Neck Bay is an early season hot spot and it?s for this very warming reason.
Linesiders prefer water temperatures between 55 and 68 degrees for optimal feeding, so, if it?s a cold, windy, rainy day in the early spring, I usually stay home. That?s not to say linesiders can?t be caught on a day like that, but the fish become less active when the water temperature stays low. Colder, overnight air temperatures make the shallows cool. Without a morning sun, the early spring waters remain cool and stripers are more lethargic throughout the day.
Ideal conditions are bright sunny days with little or no wind. Morning water temperatures will still be cool, so the mid-day to dusk period in conjunction with a good tide is the best time.
Early spring back bay surf fishing for me means fairly light tackle. I use a 7-foot rod with a quality reel spooled with 8- to 12-pound-test monofilament or an 8-pound-test braid line.
A 9-foot rod should be the maximum length because you?ll be throwing light plugs, maybe in some fairly tight spots. I tie a 40- to 60-pound-test rated barrel swivel to a 25-inch length of 30-pound-test monofilament as my shock leader. If the bass are spooky, I?ll omit the barrel swivel and tie the leader directly to my line with a Blood Knot.
There is a large array of artificials you can use. I suggest you check the shoreline to see if any bait is present and try to match it with what you have in your surf bag. Generally, the dominant early spring baitfish are Atlantic silversides (spearing). Small Bombers, Hellcats, and Redfins match this baitfish well. My money lure for the early spring is a 3/8-ounce Kastmaster. I remove the treble hook and small bucktail, and replace it with a 1/0 O?Shaughnessy hook dressed with a white or green tube. Small bucktails are also deadly and will imitate a host of baitfish. Teasers can be all-important. White Deceivers, epoxy fly patterns, Redgills, and 3-inch Slugg-Os will do the job nicely. Tie the teaser to a 6-inch length of 30-pound-test mono and add it to the barrel swivel so that it swims ahead of the main lure. Many anglers will tell you that a teaser set-up will imitate a larger baitfish chasing a smaller one, and a linesider will hit the teaser because it wants to get to that meal first. I don?t believe this is the case. I believe that the larger lure is simply a weight to put the teaser in the strike zone and it?s the teaser itself that can better match the prevailing bait. It?s one of those things to debate on the beach.
Another way to fish teasers is to cut a .75-inch diameter dowel into a 3.5-inch length. Put a screw eye in both ends, as close to dead center as possible. Attach your line to one eye and your leader with teaser to the other. Adjust the length of the leader to suit the water depth. This will enable you to cast your teaser to the strike zone and keep it off the bottom where it can snag. This set-up works especially well in rocky areas.
You can carry all the plugs in the world, but if you don?t present the plug properly to the fish, they will not touch it. There is no exact science to a retrieve, but several techniques.
Early spring or not, I make my first twelve to eighteen casts from the beach without entering the water. Many times I have had fish within 10 feet of the shoreline, and I would have missed them if I had entered the water too hastily. Last year, I took a 33-pound bass only about 9 feet from the shore.
I fan my casts from left to right, using fast, slow, jerky, and stop-and-go retrieves. A bucktail or tin will cover water nicely and one of them is usually my first lure choice. If I believe the fish are spooky, I let my lure sit for about ten seconds before starting the retrieve. You are often fishing waters that are below 50 degrees during the early spring. Stripers metabolisms are slower, so they feed less frequently, are more lethargic, and usually will not chase a fast-moving bait.
Most back bay areas have a mud bottom with little or few places to snag, so I like to let my tin or bucktail hit bottom, and retrieve slowly right on the bottom with tiny, subtle jerks. There are always exceptions, so try different retrieves, but, when the water temperatures are below 50, it?s a slower retrieve that works more often than not.
As the water reaches that magical 55-degree mark and the fish become more aggressive, I use a much faster retrieve.
Don?t forget that the New York striped bass season doesn?t open until May 8. Using barbless hooks and releasing the fish promptly will cut down on mortality rates.
