When striped bass feel the urge to migrate, things get wild in the surf.
For some reason, when I picture October fishing, the scene that gathers in my imagination always seems to be placed at the end of the month. Being a New-Englander, that means a cold sunrise with a distant ruckus of birds, alone on the beach transfixed on that widening belt of orange in the east as the sun continues to gain on the horizon.
I guess I sweep the three previous weeks into their own special month – Septober? Octember? But the illusion I have chosen as quintessential, doesn’t really align with reality. In truth, October comes in with hope and, admittedly, it does go out with a hint of sadness, a melancholy feeling, accompanied by a certain level of determination ‘to make the most of what’s left’.
Depending on where you live along striper’s range, you may need to adjust the timing of the arrival of these feelings, but the core fact remains: October somehow manages to mark both the beginning and the end of something that’s important to everyone that loves to fish the surf. I used to look at the surfcasting season as a ride that I stepped onto in April and had to be yanked off of sometime between Thanksgiving and the first week of December, but more recently, I have become increasingly focused on all of the little micro-seasons within it and trying to build an understanding of why each one exists.
You might be tempted to jump out ahead of me and label every day, week and month after Labor Day as ‘The Fall Run’ and oversimplify its existence by saying that seasonal triggers are telling the stripers to migrate south. Taking the 20,000-foot view, that would be an accurate explanation, but it would also be the explanation you’d give the lady walking her dog on the beach that asked you why there were so many fish in the wash that morning.
As a seasoned fisherman, I think I need to dig a little deeper than that. Seeking a deeper answer will usually lead to deeper understanding, even if the answer you originally sought never reveals itself. As surfcasters, we become better when we let our curiosity lead and allow our natural instinct to ‘want to understand’ guide our focus.
Phases Of Movement
The way I look at the fall migration, there are three main phases to the stripers’ yearly exodus. It begins with a ‘bulk up’ period at the very end of the summer, baitfish begin to stream out of the estuaries, and the only real ‘migration’ taking place is the stripers (along with bluefish, fluke, albies, etc.) moving in along the beach to take advantage of this first wave of bait young-of-the-year baitfish. Where I live and fish, this phase lasts well into September and, toward its latter half, the action intensifies as fish from the north migrate in and join the party.
With a long menu of potential baits that include, mullet, peanut bunker, silversides, bay anchovies, sand eels and various herring species along with more exotic options like northern sennet, needlefish, kingfish, spot and even halfbeaks…a surfcaster needs to be ready for everything. This is an awesome time to be alive because the bites can be so ferocious and the schools are often so dense; it’s those ‘fish every cast’ tides and days and nights you’ll never forget.
The second phase is the initial movement of resident fish populations. Calling these fish residents, may be a little bit of a stretch, there’s no way to prove it, and by this time, the fall migration is already underway; but water temp or photo period has reached a critical point and the majority of the fish switch from bulk-up mode to feeling the urge to migrate, seemingly all at once. This period is marked by great bites that dry up as quickly as they turn on, daytime blitz fishing becomes much more reliable and also works as a way to find feeding activity for fishing after dark. This is the period I want to focus on here, when the striper migration reaches that point of double urgency. (The final phase is what I would call the ‘late run’ these fish are usually stragglers, but sometimes are huge schools that are following a massive run of large baitfish like sea herring or adult bunker.)
Double Urgency?
As anglers, we’re always looking for an edge to catch more fish. So often, I find that edge in trying to make sense of the mode or mood of the fish I’m trying to catch. If I were to profile the average striped bass moving along the coast in October, I would say that the urgency to feed is heightened and constant, while the instinctual urge to migrate increases with each passing day. This is when I switch into what I’m referring to as the ‘migration mindset’ for the basis of this article. And when you combine this with the fact that, at this point in the season, striped bass are usually traveling in larger schools, there’s urgency, combined with feeding competition and my experience says that this makes these amazing predators particularly susceptible to being caught on artificials.
If you need a human example to understand this, just the other day I was away for a weekend getaway with my wife, I took a morning ride to a famous bakery and found a long line stretching out the door. As I walked toward the back of the line, I saw a couple walking from the opposite direction, clearly heading for the same line. As we approached, it was clear, from 40 feet away, that I would arrive a few steps before they did. Then, as if possessed by the goddess of flour and butter herself, the woman broke into a run and dashed into the line two steps before I arrived. “That was dirty!” I uttered with laugh, the woman dropped her head and sheepishly apologized. Truth be told, I was going to let them go in front of me anyway, that’s just how I am. But that competitive urge to feed got the better of her.
Picture This
A few years back, I was fishing one of my favorite spots; the bite had been decent-yet-sporadic with darters and plastic swimmers, but I was getting a lot of short strikes. I was counting on the tide to get moving to fire these fish up, but that wasn’t happening. As I looked down the shoreline, I saw a headlamp and immediately started to worry about being discovered, especially if the bite really started to fire up, it would be hard to unhook a dozen fish, or more, without using a light.
So I grabbed a soft plastic mounted on half-ounce head and fired it out there. For the first five casts, I tried to make it act like the plugs I had been fishing, a slow-to-moderate retrieve with minimal action. I had a few more ‘bangs’ but nothing committed. Then, something serendipitous happened, I hung up on a rock and had to pop it free, once I did that, I had to reel fast to get catch up to the bait and get it up and away from the bottom in a hurry. As soon as I caught up the bait and rushed away from the snag, BOOM, I got my first real smashing hit of the night and landed a solid fish of around 20 pounds.
On my next cast, I fired it out there and just burned it in, nothing. I tried again, nothing. On my next cast, I allowed the bait to sink, counting to five, I burned it again…nada. I tried the five-count again, this time I burned the bait in but also rhythmically pumped the rod, almost like a pencil popper, but half the intensity. Another 20-pound class fish ate it. After a while, I stopped counting it down and started reeling even faster, the hits only became more intense. From that point until the tide emptied the depression in front of me, it didn’t matter how fast I reeled as long as I pumped the rod, my bait was viciously assaulted. I never turned my light on and no one knew I was there.
Exploiting Urgency
To exploit this competitive behavior, I try to think about creating a scenario that would be too good to pass up. But there’s another side to this presentation that’s every bit as important, and that is triggering their instinct to ‘not let something get away’. Picture any moment when you’ve seen a pack of stripers pin a baitfish to the surface, there might be 10 bass on one baitfish, but they will not quit until one of them gets it or the baitfish escapes into shallow water. This spectacle clearly shows the competition taking place between all the committed predators and highlights their determination to be the one that wins the prize.
Day or night, the surface of the water is a ceiling and the fish know this. When a competitive school is presented with an opportunity to feed, one of their go-to hunting tactics is to push that baitfish (or the whole school of baitfish) to the surface where they can cut their sphere of escape options in half. This is why a large topwater plug like the Doc has the power to pull big stripers off the bottom in 20 feet of water or more; that plug presents as a large baitfish that is already trapped on the surface and their instincts simply won’t allow them to pass on that opportunity; I believe their instincts tell them that the likelihood of success is simply too high.
When in ‘October mode,’ think about the competitive nature of each individual fish in that dense school you either know or believe is in front of you. Choose lures that will catch their attention, think frantic, think lures that can be fished ultra-fast without rolling out. Think about paddletails like the 5- or 8-inch NLBN, which present as a meaty target and, through the action of their tail, give off the frantic pulse of a vulnerable baitfish, searching for any kind of safety. Or try a ‘rat tail’ bait like a Super Snax or a Bomba Shad, impart action with pumps of the rod. You can also achieve these looks with a Yo-Zuri Mag Darter, which can be fished hard and fast. A Magic Swimmer is another great hardbait option. In daylight, we’re more accustomed to this mode; big spooks, frantic pencils, chugging poppers…but one of my best daytime baits these last two years has been a 5-inch NLBN paddletail fished hard and fast, right below the surface. An Albie Snax XL is another frantic soft plastic that kills when used to exploit the competitive tendencies of schooled up stripers.
The main thing is just to keep this central theme in the forefront of your mind: the surface is an un-crossable boundary that predatory fish use to trap their prey. Any baitfish that finds itself swimming along the surface over deeper water is going to instinctively know it’s vulnerable and will make a beeline for some kind of safety. Exploit these facts and try to inject that frantic vulnerability into the way you present your lures. This action is going to look familiar to a predatory striped bass and they are genetically programmed to attack. Add in the aspect of the competitive nature of a migrating school and all caution goes to the wayside and the only thing that’s going to matter to the fish, is being the one that gets there first.
