Striped Bass

The striped bass (Morone saxatilis), also known as the striper or rockfish, is easily identified by the dark horizontal stripes across its silvery body. Striped bass can grow to more than 48 inches (122 cm), weigh over 50 pounds (23 kg) and live up to 30 years. The New York State record is a 76 pound (34 kg) fish caught off Montauk in 1981. The largest striped bass on record is a 125 pound (56 kg) female caught off North Carolina in 1891. Most really big striped bass, specifically those over 30 pounds, are likely to be female. These big fish are often referred to as “cows,” fish normally in the 40 plus range, anything between 20 and forty we like to call “calves”.

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Striped Bass Feeding Habits

By Captain Mike Neto – Adrianna Fishing Charters

Striped bass have a varied diet; they prey on fish, such as menhaden and eel, and on crustaceans and other invertebrates, including crabs, lobster, and squid. Most people assume that a striped bass’s main diet is clams, bunker, and eels because those are the baits that we use to catch them. But that is not true, striped bass generally forage on invertebrates such as crabs and lobster. Around 60 to 90 percent of the striped bass that I will fillet after a charter have traces of manta shrimp which are very prevalent. The reason why baits such as bunker are so productive even though they are not what a striped bass generally eats is because bunker is a much more filling meal and easy meal, a striped bass would much rather pick up a few bunker chunks or clam bellies just hanging there as apposed to chasing down some shrimp or lobsters which take much longer to digest.

Striped Bass Spawning

Striped bass are anadromous fish which means they travel long distances to fresh water to spawn. Although they spawn in freshwater rivers they live their adult lives in the ocean. The main spawning grounds for striped bass is the Hudson River.

In the spring, mature striped bass swim up to the headwaters of the Hudson to spawn. The fertilized eggs float downstream until hatching a few days after spawning. The bass larvae continue to move downstream until they reach the estuaries, areas such as Haverstraw Bay to the Tappan Zee Bridge. These areas function as nursery areas for the larvae and juvenile fish during the summer. By late summer and into fall, these “young-of-the-year” fish move into the estuaries of New York Harbor and western Long Island bays, where they will live until they are large enough to join the adults off the coast. Adult striped bass follow a seasonal migration pattern. They swim south and offshore from New York waters during the winter and migrate back north and inshore in the spring. In the spring, mature adults once again head up river to spawn.

The other spawning areas for striped bass are the Delaware and Chesapeake bay. When we see these fish begin to return to our waters whether they be the Long Island Sound, the Great South Bay or further north in Rhode Island or Massachusetts most anglers dont ask themselves the question, “where do these fish come from?” And the answer is pretty simple, the stripers that make their way through the Long Island Sound are mainly from the Hudson River spawners and the stripers that make their northerly run around Long Island are generally the ones that come from the Delaware and Chesapeake bays.