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.
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 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.
Nice Stripers boys. I’ll take a ten pound fish anytime.
No doubt, Joey. Anytime fish eat your flies, it’s a great day. 10-pound fish pull hard.
Wow beautiful looking fish! Amazing how calm the sea is in those photos.
Nice lookin fish. Makes miss the ones I used to catch in Ga running up the Hooch. I smell a trip.
I’ve always wanted to get after them in North Carolina or Savannah in the winter.
Nice stripes gentlemen. Lone Angler, I’m on the Hooch a good bit, give me a holler if get down here.
Sweet! … beautiful fish .. clean and healthy looking. look like fresh fish; i’d imagine they had sea lice on them? … Looking forward to another great Northeast Saltwater season this year .. way to kick it off. Maine is a bit behind this season, water temps are still a bit cold .. but things should light up any day now .. the bait is so thick this year, its amazing .. big bait too.