Striper Bass
Morone Saxatilis
Timothy Kusherets
As an anadromous fish Striper Bass don’t migrate inland very far at all.
Spending almost its entire life in saltwater these fish migrate to rivers to
spawn and then back out to sea. It is the timing of their inland migration that
makes them available for drift-fishing and the ease of each drift-fishing technique
make this fish sought by anglers throughout coastal regions of the U.K. and
North America.
Stripers can get to absolutely huge. On average they can be hooked into from
six to nine-pounds with routine specimens getting over twenty to seventy-pounds;
for a bass of any kind that makes them monsters of the sea. The world record
is well over a hundred pounds.
The dorsal area is dark green to brown with deep olive-brown and chrome stripes
along both sides of the body. The soft mouth might make some fishermen think
that this is a bottom feeder, but it’s really a diverse feeding fish that
can feed from middle strata, or neutral, to bottoms of rivers and bays. It’s
the direction of the mouth that gives the feeding habits of this fish away.
The mouth is slightly upturned, but is at the lower extremities of the head
alluding to the idea that it could be a surface feeder as well, which is another
reason fly fishermen love to fish for them. The Spiny dorsal fin is accompanied
by another with soft boned rays directly behind it. Most fishermen will either
bank or net their catch by grabbing it by the soft mouth. With the skinny “peduncle”
and forked tail it’s important to be wearing rag wool gloves to safely
tail it before releasing it back to the water.
This fish is a fighter just like all bass are and that means leaders need to
be tough. In many cases it’s best to reverse the leader and mainline strengths
or the mainline could end up being so visible as to turn all fish off from possible
strikes. In the Advanced Drift-Fishing Techniques of this book is a chapter
on “Reversing” leader and mainline strengths. Read it to get a more
in depth understanding of needed techniques to get these awesome fish on the
hook. These fish will put up quite a battle and can successfully be landed on
monofilament mainlines not heavier than seventeen-pound test.
One of the best ways to fish for this lunker is to drift-fish it with size eight
and six corkies. Most of the time using huge knots of yarn on an egg loop should
be accompanied by very smelly scent. Scents applied should be no less than herring,
smelt, and squid. These odors can easily attract steelhead and salmon, but if
fished properly will not garner strikes from them. The sizes of needed corkies
will turn salmon and steelhead away from any possible strikes making this an
excellent fishing technique that will only get the intended hookups from stripers.
Stripers will hold in the deepest recesses of any river and will rarely reveal
themselves in waters that run turbid. Schooling striped bass tend to be smaller
with larger fish holding alone. Pools and tributaries are spots to seek when
looking for this fish.
Stripers can be found within a mile or two of any coastline. Commonly found
along the Atlantic Coast of North America and the U.K. they can also be found
on the west coast of the U.S. from southern Oregon to northern California. This
area has a strong striper fishery and remains a secret fishing hole for the
entire region. Many locals that live in Washington, Oregon, and California don’t
even know that stripers can be caught because they’ve made strong associations
with the Atlantic species. This particular enigma is perpetuated in the fact
that other books don’t print the productive fisheries of the Pacific Northwest.
© Timothy Kusherets 2004/08
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