If you’ve read this blog for any period of time you probably picked up on the fact that I like fishing for striped bass. As a Jersey Shore guy, please no comparisons to Snooki and the casts of miscreants on the supposed reality show by the same name, striped bass are the premiere inshore game fish in my backyard, as they are for anglers from North Carolina to Maine. Fall is coming on fast with water temperatures plummeting and massive amounts of baitfish moving out of coastal rivers and bays. That means fishing the beach fronts should be fantastic for beach and boat anglers.
I took my center console out of Manasquan Inlet yesterday to chase false albacore and oceanic bonito and the concentration of bait in the river near the inlet was epic. The same goes for outside the inlet. Peanut bunker, mullet, bay anchovies, sand eels and spearing were everywhere and on the bottom below them were acres of small weakfish and spot picking them off. Bass love all of these forage species, including the weakfish and the spot, and you can match the hatch with a few simple lures and techniques.
The vanguard of bigger bass migrating south are not here yet, only the resident fish that remain in these waters throughout the summer, but they aren’t far away in distance or time. By early October we will be seeing large schools of stripers working their way south, stopping to feed voraciously along the way. The timing will be earlier to our north and later to our south, but you can count on it.
Two of my favorite methods of catching fall stripers are using light spinning tackle with plastic shads or using a medium bait casting outfit to vertical fish metal jigs. The two techniques don’t require a lot of specialized tackle, but I would not be caught dead without braid on both the spinning and bait casting outfits – Hi-Seas Grand Slam Braid or Hi-Seas Wildfire Fused Braid to be more precise. Why? Well the simple answer is they basically guarantee you’ll catch more fish. OK, it’s not a written guarantee, but using braid puts so many factors more squarely in your favor that you’d be crazy not to use the stuff.
Most of my spinning outfits for fall bass are 7’ graphite and rated as light/medium or medium with appropriately sized reels. They are spooled with 10 to 20-pound test Wildfire. Most of my bait casting outfits are 7’ straight-butt trigger sticks with medium or medium/heavy actions and appropriately sized reels loaded with 30 to 50-pound Grand Slam Braid.
The spinning rods are used mostly for throwing plastic shads or bucktails and Wildfire is the perfect line choice. Since it’s a Spectra line it has all the necessary benefits – thin diameter so the lures sink deeper more quickly, almost no stretch so you can feel even the lightest pick up, and its tough stuff. Fusing the outer sheath of the line gives it a rounder, smoother feel so it casts and spools beautifully on spinning reels and no special braid knots are necessary for tying on leaders.
I prefer Grand Slam Braid on the bait casting outfits because it is thinner than even the fused braid and I tend to use heavier line on these rigs. That’s because the metal jigs I fish below the boat are frequently heavier and larger, requiring a stiffer action rod to work them. I frequently fish jigs in deeper water right on the bottom, where stripers spend a good deal of their time, and big jigs can catch some big bass so the heavier tackle provides a better chance at boating a bigger fish. Grand Slam Braid is extremely thin, even in 30 and 50-lb test, and with almost no stretch you can feel the subtle pick up of a striper grabbing the jig while it is sinking to the bottom or when lifting and dropping it. It also gives you an advantage when setting the hook. A quick lift of the rod transmits all the power directly to the hook without losing any to line stretch.
The fall run in coming, the fall run is coming. Is your tackle rigged and ready for these two great fall striper techniques? It isn’t if the reels aren’t loaded with Hi-Seas Grand Slam Braid and Hi-Seas Wildfire lines.
Caputi’s Blog Tip: When fishing either braided line for fall stripers be sure to add a four or five foot leader of Hi-Seas 100% Fluorocarbon in 50 or 60 lb test as shock and chafe protections. Stripers might not have teeth, but they do have sand paper lined jaws. If bluefish are mixed in add a bite leader of AFW Surflon Micro Supreme. You can tie knots with it just like monofilament.
