Striper Migration Map – May 3, 2024
The bays are on fire. Raritan, Narragansett, and Buzzards are loaded with fish to 40 inches, blasting baitfish on the surface. Some true giants are getting caught in New Jersey, and with bass exiting the Chesapeake, having completed their spawn, look for more cows to be stampeding up the coast.
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Maryland/Chesapeake Bay Striper Fishing Report
All striped bass fishing is closed in Maryland Chesapeake Bay waters. For more information about the timings and areas where striped bass fishing is allowed in the Chesapeake Bay, check out the Maryland DNR’s Striped Bass Regulation Maps.
Striped bass are leaving the bay, and anglers and biologists are hopeful, and optimistic, that it was strong spawn and the larval stripers will find plenty of plankton to eat and grow over the coming weeks. There’s been few reports of schools of stripers along the Maryland coastal beaches, but the main migration hasn’t arrived yet according to reports.
New Jersey Striper Fishing Report
Bass to 40 inches were reported on the Atlantic and Ocean county beaches this week, with boats fishing out to the three-mile line reporting schools of stripers out there. That’s a good sign that some post-spawn fish from either the Delaware or Chesapeake have reached New Jersey. Though anglers in Cape May and Delaware Bay continue to report good stripers, so the fish haven’t all vacated the southernmost part of New Jersey yet.
In Monmouth County, bass to 44 inches were reported surfside, while the Raritan Bay fishing continues to improve. The action there continues to be a little slower than recent seasons around this time, but weather and water conditions throughout March and April, plus an early lack of bunker, didn’t help.
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New York Striper Report
Bass to 25 pounds are being caught on the North Shore of Long Island as far down as Eaton’s Neck, while the South Shore enjoys a mix of schoolie to 30-inch class fish. Bunker schools in Peconic Bay have drawn in some stripers out there as well.
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Connecticut/Rhode Island Striper Report
Resident stripers are driving most of the action in Connecticut right now, with fish chasing herring in the estuaries. Look for migratory fish to fill in from both ends of Long Island Sound over the next few weeks, with Hudson River spawners moving in from the west, and Chesapeake fish moving in from the east.
Angler’s answering an early alarm found blitzing bass on Narragansett Bay this week, with 30- to 34-inchers common and fish over 40 inches reported. Bunker are the main bait at the moment, as big schools of the baitfish showed up over the last week or so. The fishing broke wide open for boat anglers since last week.
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Cape Cod/Massachusetts Striper Report
The striper run in Massachusetts went from a trickle to a flood, as flocks of birds lead the way to feeding stripers off the South Coast and Buzzards Bay this past week. Many of the fish are 24- to 30-inchers, with some 40-inch fish in the mix. Fish with sea lice have been reported all the way up to the North Shore.
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2 on “Striper Migration Map – May 3, 2024”
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Skippy D. Where is the Hudson River Report???
My last fish on the Hudson was 56# 40″ -
Steven Jalbert Had a stripper straiten out the rear treble on a salt water spook in Beverly Danvers river not great hooks but deff slot or bigger
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