Tag Archives: night fishing striped bass

“Should I Stay or Should I Go?” in Surfcasters Journal 81

I don’t know if The Clash ever fished for striped bass, but they might as well have been singing about it in their early 80s hit. So, when do you admit defeat and leave a mark? When do you stick it out? These questions and more are addressed in “Should I Stay or Should I Go?” written by yours truly. You can read it in the current issue #81 of Surfcasters Journal. This e-zine is available by online subscription only, and its written by some of the best surf anglers in the Northeast. Oh! it’s only 20 bucks a year! You can subscribe here.

If you’re not reading Surfcasters Journal, you should be. Even if you’re a fly-only angler like me, there is an insane amount of useful intel contained within. $20 for one year.

Striper Mini Report 9/21/22: Nothin’ Shakin’ (But The Leaves On The Trees)

The rockabilly music scholars among you will no doubt recognize the title as the Eddie Fontaine classic (or the Beatles’ excellent BBC cover, for bonus points). But for our purposes, it’s an apt description of my Wednesday night outing. Surfcaster extraordinaire Toby Lapinski reported several hours of similar non-action the night before, but that was many miles east of the mark I fished. Besides, this was an entirely different type of water (estuary). I fished 90 minutes of incoming, then outgoing tide. Not. A. Touch. No menhaden (juvenile or adult). Only a handful of silversides. I heard three pops and saw one small bass holding in the current. In desperation, I zipped over to another mark, which was also dead as Julius Caesar. So it goes.

Ever feel like this is message the bass are sending you? But, you keep at it. Toby. did, and Thursday night at another coastal mark he was into over a dozen stripers in the 20+ pound range. He was plugging, and he told me that most of the bass were at the extreme edge of his casting range. I suppose that made me feel a little better!