Gone Fishin' ... Stripers in the Surf

If you headed to the beach recently, you were likely greeted with the sight of crowds of fishermen and what looked like fleets of fishing boats out beyond the breakers. Their quarry: the much-sought striped bass.

But how much do you really know about the big, beautiful fish they're after?

What it is:

Striped bass belong to the Moronidae family of fishes, a collection of similar fresh and saltwater species. Individuals have darker upper bodies and light, silvery sides with about half a dozen dark, lateral lines that give the species its common name.

Stripers can live as long as 40 years, and can grow to be very large. A longstanding record fish, landed in Atlantic City, weighed 78.5 pounds and measured six feet. That record stood for 29 years until this past August, when a Connecticut angler landed an 81-pounder. The new record was certified last month by the International Game Fish Association.

They are best known as surf-dwellers, but they’re actually anadromous, meaning they swim up rivers to spawn in fresh water, and can survive and even thrive in an all-freshwater environment.

The fish have been introduced in reservoirs around the country and on the Pacific coast, but their native range is the Atlantic seaboard. The Delaware and Chesapeake bays are home to major breeding populations, and twice a year, big schools of adult stripers migrate up and down the coast in search of ideal water temperatures and food.

New Jersey happens to be in a migratory sweet spot, seeing populations from both southern bay and river mouths and northern ones swim by in spring and fall, snacking as they go.

Striped bass are fast swimmers, but not as fast as other coastal predators, like bluefish. Their real swimming skill lies in their ability to maneuver well in turbulent water. Instead of chasing down their prey – mostly smaller fish, but also crustaceans like crab – they wait for it to be tossed up, disoriented, in the churning surf. Then they go in for the kill.

Where to find them:

To see a striped bass in the flesh, grab a pole and join the crowds on New Jersey’s beaches in the spring and fall – or ask an experienced angler for a look. There's a science to landing a striper. The fish tend to favor dawn and dusk for feeding, but knowing what to offer them is tricky.

They're opportunistic feeders who will bite a wide variety of bait, but they tend to be finicky, and it’s not always easy to predict what they’ll take on a given day. Bait or lure? Casting from boat or surf? Even the experts will argue over the best method of fishing for stripers. One thing everybody can agree on? They can put up a great fight on a line.

Why bother:

There’s something special about heading up to the beach in late fall during a striper run. The flocks of screaming gulls, the floundering prey fish in the shallows and the fishing boats in the distance all tell you that there are hundreds of fish hiding out there, hunting just below the water’s surface.

Stripers have long been a significant species for coastal communities. According to the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries, income from striped bass fisheries was used to found one of the first public school in the American colonies.

The species has seen its ups and downs since, and waves of regulation have been imposed in an effort to keep populations up.  The reproductive success of the Atlantic stock plunged in the early 1980s, reaching a low of about 5 million fish, according to the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission. The likeliest culprit was pollution in the striper’s spawning grounds, particularly in the troubled Chesapeake Bay.

But management programs have been a success, and regulators estimate the Atlantic striped bass population now numbers about 56 million.