It’s not too late to find that last big surf striper, but your chances dwindle with each passing day.
It’s November and I have already put in a lot of time in the surf for the season. I try not to go too hard early in the year, logging my May outings with the goal of leaving at least a little in the tank for November. I am not talking about physical energy here, there’s plenty of time to catch up on sleep in the months between, but more so on the mental side that needs to be conserved throughout the season. Even as I get on in years, just easing past my 44th birthday in October, it’s the mental toll that a season of hard surfcasting takes on my body more so than a physical one. I can power through the aches and pains with the help of a little Ibuprofen and some yoga, but when my mind says no there is little I can do to combat it.
Scraping up the motivation to fish in November can often be difficult. I skip more fishable tides at the end of the season because I ask myself, “What more do I have to prove or accomplish this year?” or “Is there anything that another tide is going to do to make this season stand out above the rest?” Too many times the answer is simply, “Nothing.” That’s the surest way to forgo setting an alarm to for an early tide or to opt for a night in bed catching up on the final season of Walking Dead or watching a Bruins game instead of casting into a cold ocean with the air temps dipping into the 30s. Further, I can only tell myself so many times that – come February I’d give anything for “just one more tide” – before even I stop believing myself.
Keep It Real
It’s 2022, not Block Island in 1987, and this isn’t the Snowstorm Blitz; you’re not going to march into the surf to find giant bass committing suicide on needlefish for days on end. You might find a pod of willing fish, but quite often they are gone as fast as they arrive, and your expectations need to be rooted in reality and potential based on what is available.
In the meat of the season my expectation is that, on any given night, if I make the right choices, I can find a steady pick of 20-pound-class fish with a couple 30’s mixed-in and a 40-plus not out of the question. This is based on past experiences and averages of seasons gone by, not perusal of the socials and what other anglers claim to be doing. It is a result of the simple fact that striped bass spend their summers in the Northeast so there is a body of fish that claims residence in my home waters. In short, I am working off a large pool of fish to be caught.
Once the fall arrives, as more tides come and go, fewer fish remain. Each day another school of fish makes its way out of local waters, not to be caught by my hands until next season. Yes, there are always fish coming down from the north, but the numbers become fewer and fewer, and I believe that each passing wave is smaller than its predecessor. This leaves a smaller body of fish to catch and therefore large gaps between successes.
Where?
This is so open-ended.
I’ve written about places to hunt big striped bass in the fall in the past, and I always feel like I am being too vague to be of any real help as despite my best efforts, there is no blueprint for success. There are spots that have traditionally seen November bites—Nauset, Block Island, the breachways of SoCo, Naps, Montauk, etc.—but they don’t happen every year. I believe these historical hot zones are created by the increased effort they see rather than there being some kind of November magic that makes them better than surrounding areas. I mean, if everyone heads to Deep Hole because Steve McKenna did well there that one time a few years back, then how do you even know if there are fish elsewhere?
My spot selection doesn’t change all that much in November as I target the same type of spots from cast one of the season to my last outing. I put myself in places where I either know fish have been based on my logs, or where I feel current conditions will push fish and bait together. In my mind I like to think that the bass put on a “feeding hat” at the end of the season with the intent to bulk up for the swim south, but deep down when I rationalize this concept it begins to fall apart. A striped bass is just as much in need of caloric intake in June as he or she is in November, and no matter what happens there will always be something they can find to eat whether it be bunker, shad, a crab, or a small striper; they’re not going to starve anytime soon.
How?
Again, this is a rather boring answer as for me, as it doesn’t change all that much throughout the season. I rarely – if ever – target schoolies. Even when I set out in December for my last few outings in the salt at a spot I know holds smaller fish on average, I try to seek out bigger fish that might be passing by or staging for wintering-over. I constantly resist the urge to save a night with a few small fish in exchange for that one big fish that will make it into my logbook in bold letters.
So, with this mentality, there is not much that is going into my surf bag that is different in November. I still pack darters, needlefish, and large metal lips. I still try to replicate a high-calorie meal. When the opportunity presents itself, a chunking session is always an option. I fish the same tide stages that I would in May, August, or October. And what does this result in? Plenty of skunkings on average but every so often things come together and I score, and I can find many examples of this in my logbook. There was the early November night when I landed seven bass in the 30-pound class on eels, topping it off with a 46-pounder at low slack. This followed several nights without a touch in the same spot and was the last positive entry in the season’s log. Another year I caught a 42-pound striper the week of Thanksgiving on a needlefish after going hitless for nearly 4 hours of casting. Thoughts of the deep wade/swim back to shore that night was the only thing that kept me going for as long as I did but it was all worth it in the end.
Circling back to my first point, remaining in the game mentally is perhaps the most crucial factor for me when hunting down that final large striped bass of the season. I know that at the very moment when my mind begins to wander, it’s time to call it off whether this means for the night, the week, or the season altogether. Knowing when to throw in the towel is rarely an easy decision to make, but sometimes it is staring you in the face as this final entry in my logbook from a few years back exemplifies.
November 27 – 2:28 AM high tide, winds NNE 8-10 with occasional gusts of 15-plus, 3 days off the new moon. The air temperature started in the mid-30s but registered 29 when I got in my truck to drive home. Despite having perfect tides, wind, and moon for the last few nights, once again there was simply nothing going on tonight. I found plenty of bunker once again, and on my first throw of the cast net I had 17 baits. I cut them up, and worked the bowl for three hours without so much as a tap. Several times I saw small bunker pods moving down the shore and through the bowl, but at no time did I see anything on them. By the time the tide topped out and went slack I could barely move my fingers and would have had severe difficulty holding a fish had I caught anything. The best part of the night was when I got home, took off the wetsuit and stood in the shower. It might be time to hang the suit and call it a season.
