Striper Migration Map - May 14, 2015

CHESAPEAKE BAY

According to the Maryland DNR, fishing in the Upper Bay has been excellent as post-spawn striped bass from the Susquehanna Flats area are making their way down into the bay. The hungry fish are gorging on herring and menhaden. With water temperatures in the Bay reaching the 70-degree mark, the big bass will soon head out into the ocean and start migrating north.

Many post-spawn fish have already left the Bay and are heading up the coast toward New Jersey. In the next week, we expect to hear reports of some large bass colliding with bunker schools off the Jersey Shore.

DELAWARE RIVER/BAY

Stripers are spawning in the Delaware River. Look for big post-spawn fish to begin showing up in Delaware Bay catches any day.

NEW JERSEY

New Jersey’s bluefish bonanza continues, with the ravenous blues beating up bunker schools in the bays and along the beaches. Some anglers are fighting their way through the bluefish and catching quality stripers into the high teens. The large post-spawn bass from the Chesapeake have yet to make an appearance in New Jersey, and the large stripers that were in Raritan Bay appear to have gone into the Hudson River to spawn.

NEW YORK

More keepers are being caught on Long Island, on both shores. Schoolies have been reported all way out to Montauk. A few fish into the teens have been reported, but it’s still mostly schoolies that anglers are finding.

CONNECTICUT

Striped bass fishing is excellent in the rivers, at the river mouths, and on the beaches of Long Island Sound. More 30-inch-class stripers have been reported this week, particularly around river herring runs, and a few bass over 20 pounds were also reported this week.

RHODE ISLAND

Big numbers of fresh schoolie striped bass to 30 inches have been reported in recent days from the south-facing Rhode Island shorelines and inside Narragansett Bay. Several fish in the 30-inch range are turning up in catches inside Narragansett Bay.

MASSACHUSETTS

Fresh stripers have been reported in Buzzards Bay, along the south side to Chatham, in the Cape Cod Canal and along the Sandwich beaches on the Cape Cod Bay side. River herring runs are loaded, squid are in thick off Onset, and there have been reports of worm hatches in the south side estuaries. The best action has been in upper Buzzards Bay from Westport to Onset and along the southside from Falmouth to Cotuit.  Bluefish have been reported on the southside as well.

North of the Cape, stripers have been reported in Plymouth Bay, the North River in Scituate, Boston Harbor, and along the North Shore. Cape Ann estuaries produced numbers of fish on Sunday. Plum Island also has schoolie stripers.

NEW HAMPSHIRE AND MAINE

Fresh schoolies have arrived on the New Hampshire Seacoast. Southern Maine anglers should have stripers by this weekend!