April 2, 2024
The time to prepare for another season of shorebound Striped Bass fishing has come and gone, and the time to catch fish is upon us. Here is how my thoughts have gone.
This past week, I entered the garage, turned several five gallon buckets of random stuff upside down, and began sorting and untangling. During the midst of the season, this feels like an arduous task, but that Spring cleaning is the only thing equally certain to the arrival of migratory birds and fish to Eastern Long Island. For that reason, it is fine by me. The alewives have mostly made their way into freshwater headwaters, bunker are appearing further East by the day, and Stripers will be keen to their newfound presence.
As will I.
With Striped Bass being the first game fish to return to our saltwater bays on Eastern Long Island in the Spring, usually in the first couple weeks of April, I have prepared myself for what figures to be a good three-plus full months of targeting Striped Bass primarily. Come May 1st or so, I will mix in some fluke offerings, and the weakfish won’t be forgotten come the third week of this month, but for now, I am striper-minded.
My spring assortment of stuff is very simple. I throw two rods in the early spring back bays when fishing from shore.
An 8’6 Medium Tsunami Trophy II, with a Tsunami Salt-X 4000, spooled with 20lb Berkley x9. This is what I throw where distance matters.
My creek/bridge setup is where I like to have most of my fun in the Spring. A 7′ Medium St Croix Mojo Inshore, Daiwa BGMQ 3000, 10lb PowerPro.
Everyone loves topwater, so I’ll start there. Topwater is very hit or miss in the early goings, but if anything works early on, it is a pencil popper, and a relatively small one at that. 3/4-1-1/2oz will do fine. In terms of other plugs, mag darters in the two smaller sizes, those larger 5″ rapala x-raps, and SP minnows are primarily what I throw if I am going the plugging route. By the time May rolls around, I’ll be throwing Spooks almost constantly. Not because it is smart, but because I can’t put them down. Yo-Zuri TopKnock is a fish killer. Swap out the trebles for singles, crush the barbs, or both because I did not mean fish killer in that sense.
That said, I have always done better with small soft plastics in the Spring. My personal favorite, and one that has brought countless stripers to hand is the Bass Assassin Sea Shad 4″. It fits perfectly on a Kalin’s jig head 1/4-1/2oz and you are in business. You can let it sweep and bounce it, you can burn it, or a straight bottom bouncing retrieve. It is versatile and just gets bit. White and Dark Shad are winners. Their shad assassin is also great, particularly weightless or belly-weighted. Of course small bucktails tipped with strips or small plastics account for plenty of action as well. A big fish catcher, when conditions allow one to throw it, is a large Slug-go, either 7.5″ or 9″. My largest back-bay fish of last season, a 44 incher, fell to a 7.5 inch black weightless sluggo in a still creek in October. You just never know where a big one might be, so don’t feel like casts with big baits are wasted casts, but definitely go small in general in the Spring.
However you prepare, whatever you like to throw, April is the month where we can all return to feeling some thumps and hearing some drag. Tight Lines, and catch’em up!