Striper Spring Fling

Ten fly patterns to match the East Coast’s most abundant early-season baits.

[by Henry Cowen]

They say that March goes in like a lion and out like a lamb, so whenever I start seeing and feeling the lamb, I know it’s time to dust off the fly rod and waders (or tune up the boat) and begin hitting some of my favorite early season striper haunts. Once water temperatures average in the low to mid 50s Fahrenheit, it triggers the movement of two of the largest concentrations of striped bass populations along the East Coast, and fish will leave their winter holdover grounds inside Chesapeake Bay or up the Hudson River and make the long journey toward their eventual summer hangouts.

While huge schools of fish sometimes follow an offshore migration route on their way north, some smaller groups of fish will take an inshore path along the coast. Fish coming down from the northern reaches of the Hudson River will typically take an inshore path until they clear New York Harbor and venture north into open water off Coney Island, or come through Long Island Sound and head northeast until they reach Eastern Connecticut and Rhode Island.

For fly anglers, this presents opportunities to cast flies at hungry fish that are making their trek along the entire mid-Atlantic region and points north in and around New England. From as far south as Delaware and as far north as Maine, reports of hungry stripers will become routine on social media websites and online fishing reports and in fly shops along the entire East Coast. Anglers will be able to find fish along beaches, the mouths of inlets, bays, estuaries, and tucked away in harbors. It’s a great time to be on the water.

Stripers are not as easy to find in the spring as they are once inshore water temperatures start to warm up throughout the entire coast. As June rolls around, the water temperatures along the entire striper coast are warm, and more and more schools of fish will be found inshore; it’s simply more habitable and the forage fish that striped bass target will gravitate to inshore areas throughout their entire migratory range.

Some early season striper hot spots include areas that are near hot water outflows like power-plant discharges, back-bay flats (since shallow water heats up faster than deeper water), or at estuary and river mouths (both large or small)all easily reachable by wading flyrodders. Some of my long-time favorite warm-water sanctuaries are around the Devon Power Plant on Connecticut’s Housatonic River and the Long Island Lighting Company (LILCO) in Northport, New York. Crab Meadow Beach, just east of LILCO was always a good place to locate fish early in the season.

Areas with tidal ponds that are fairly shallow will warm up quicker in the spring and present wonderful opportunities to fish for stripers early in the season. Fishing the mouths of these tidal ponds is always a big producer for me in the month of May. If you’re having trouble finding fish, my advice is to just keep searching. Sometimes it takes more sniffing around than usual, but having a good network of other anglers to commiserate or a friend in a fly shop can help you cut some corners.

For anglers with a boat, fishing near creek mouths, inlets, rivers or near any moving water will likely lead you to school-sized fish (weighing two to six pounds) during the early part of the season. Finding an occasional double-digit sized fish is possible, but this is really a nice time to break out lightweight outfits. A 6- or 7-weight rod is ideal for early-season fishing.

As the season progresses into mid-May and beyond, you can certainly start bringing out your tried and true 8- and 9-weight striper outfits. It is at this juncture that you need to spread out and start looking for fish in a multitude of areas; shallow water as well as in deeper water. While flats and estuaries will still hold good numbers of fish, savvy anglers will now start looking around deep-water rips, strong surface flows that disorientate baitfish, and other areas holding fish that are searching for their next meal.

Don’t over-complicate your search; remember, it’s all about finding the baitfish. Find the baitfish, and you will likely find hungry stripers nearby. Wildlife can help; whether it’s terns and gulls or herons and egrets, watching the collection of birds can be a dead giveaway that schools of baitfish are close by. If you’re unsure where to start, consult a map for entrances to ponds, rivers, bays, breachways, harbors, or inlets. Big or small, they’re all likely avenues to pursue.