The striper has a special allure about it that makes everyone want to catch one. Anyone who has seen one fresh striped bass out of the water, the light glinting off its silvery sides, can vouch to its beauty. Catching them, on the other hand, might be a challenge. Many “bottom fisherman” may move to bass fishing in 2008 due to probable limits that may be imposed on flounder, scup, and other species as a result of environmentalist litigation. Bass fishing differs significantly from bottom fishing.
At certain times of the day and when significant amounts of bait are present, the bass is aggressive feeders. This is usually simple to notice since the bait will jump when the bass dines on it. It’s only a matter of speeding up and slowing down before getting too close, then tossing a suitable lure among them. Don’t make the mistake of walking right into or through a feeding fish area; this is the quickest way to end your fishing trip. A topwater soft plastic or plug that matches the size and form of the bait is a suitable choice in these conditions. Cast in, then close up and begin retrieving as soon as you touch the water. Unless they’re bluefish, please don’t move it too quickly.
Bass usually eat in the shallows near some form of structure (rocks, drop-offs, humps), mainly when there is a strong current to sweep helpless bait past them in the early morning. Because of the low light conditions, topwater plugs can be particularly fruitful at this time. It’ll be even better for bass fishing if the weather is cloudy or misty that day. White surface swimmers, poppers, or walkers should be used as topwater plugs. They should be reeled as if they are injured, with periodic stops during the retrieval. When the fish smashes that water surface, splashing, rolling, and then fleeing like mad, it’s incredible. Bass fishing is one of my favourite pastimes.
It’s time to convert fishing soft plastics and maybe move inside a structure in deeper water once there’s enough light and the topwater plugs stop producing. The current is crucial again since the bass relies on it to whisk food past them. When the current is fairly weak or non-existent, you can expect the bass to be less aggressive, so you’ll have to hit them on the nose to get a strike. When drifting with soft plastics, go up the drift of the structure with the boat and position the boat so that you will drift over it before turning off the motor. Next, think about how deep the fish is holding. If striped bass is in 30 feet of water, cast out, leave the bail open for 15 seconds, then close it and begin your recovery. It would help if you also trial and error with different retrieves, such as slow, quick, jigging, and reeling until you find what the fish prefer.
If you receive a strike but don’t get a bite, manipulate the bait gently with short jigs as if it’s hurt. This will almost always result in additional strikes. The natural reaction is to haul back and reel hard, but this will result in another strike from a bluefish; if it’s a bass, they won’t chase it. It’s also possible that a bluefish will bite a piece of the plastic off, and then a bass will accept it as you handle it as if it’s injured. This is because bass enjoys chasing after bluefish, messy eaters that will slice up a bit but not finish it, leaving the fragments to sink to the bottom.
What kind of soft plastic do you employ? You try to match the hatch,’ so to speak. If you know what they eat, use something that closely resembles that bait. Use green/white zooms, sluggers, or fin-s on a jig head for sand eels. Use a four if they’re eating bunker bait in bunker colour, 5″ or 6″. Use a six if they’re eating herring.
Another method of catching bass is trolling. The tricky part is figuring out what to do when you aren’t able to grab them. Weights, downriggers, and wireline rods are used for the majority of trolling. This is because once the sun rises, bass move to the lowest portion of the water column, so you’ll need a technique to bring your gear down to where the bass is. We fish a section of the south shore of Rhode Island with many stones and is about 28 feet deep. Wire outfits of 200 feet of wire are used when trolling. This lowers the rig to around 20 feet, which is close enough given the shallowness of the location and the way the boulders protrude. Umbrellas, tube and worm rigs and parachute jigs are some of the lures we use. We’ll usually use this strategy just if we’re having difficulties getting soft plastics down to the fish. It has the potential to be highly beneficial. The speed can range from 2 to 6 knots, and we usually adjust it throughout the time we troll. It’s pretty uncommon to get hit right after speeding up.
When it doesn’t work, it’s either because your speed is off, your rig is at the wrong depth, or the fish have vanished. However, before presuming the fish are gone, I always make the first assumptions. If you haven’t caught a fish in half an hour, it’s time to give up and move on to something else.
If you keep some of these pointers in mind when you’re out fishing for bass, you can have a lot of success.