Striper Mug

I’d been shut out in my few beach expeditions for spring bass, and thought the best way to hook into one, a big one, was to meet the stripers on their turf. Right now the striped bass are running the river mouths along the East Coast. I met up with Jason Puris of thefin.com, and we hoped to get in touch with some big 20-plus pounders up in Connecticut. For that we hooked up with Mike Warecke.

First Striper of the Season

On my first cast I hooked up with my first striper of the year, a healthy ocean fish in the 10-12 pound class.

 Jason Puris with a Bass

Jason hooked up with bass from the same class.

At the start of outgoing in the morning we cast Mike’s Minnows (Warecke’s variant on the Deceiver) with full sink lines to fish stacked in troughs along a rip running a shallow flat. We switched to floating line and sliders and banged a few on surface takes. The 20-plus pounders never showed but the 10s ate a fly on almost every drift.

For me anyway, spring is now officially in session.