The Northeast Striped Bass Study with Gray Fishtag Research is expanding this month with the second annual StriperQuest tagging tournament on Thursday, May 16, 2024 along the Raritan Bay.
The festivities get underway on Wednesday, May 15, 2024 at the captains meeting to be held at Ross Brewery, 909 Main Street in Belford, NJ (732-835-7677). The tournament headquarters for the event, the captains meeting is where tournament tagging kits will be distributed and all StriperQuest rules sheets must be signed and dropped off for the tournament officials.
Open to a limited field of just 50 boats, StriperQuest is a catch and release only tournament aimed at successfully tagging as many striped bass as possible on a single day of fishing. Each tournament crew will be given a package including tags, catch cards and one tagging stick; the goal for the day is to catch as many striped bass as possible, each to be tagged with the information filled out on each corresponding catch card to be handed in at the end of the tournament day.
The official kickoff will begin with mandatory boat check-in off Bahr’s Landing in Highlands at 6:30 a.m. with lines in at 7 a.m. and out by 2:30 p.m. The completed Gray Fishtag Research catch cards must then be brought to Ross Brewery no later than 4:30 p.m. to qualify for prizes for the most measured, tagged and released striped bass.
Tournament entry starts at $350 per team, with first place team receive 50% of the pot along with a Striped Bass Mount from Gray Trophy Fish Mounts, second place earning 30%, and third getting 20%, with 15% of the entry fee contributions going to support the non-profit 501(C)3 Gray FishTag Research and their continuing work on Atlantic striped bass.
In addition to our tournament participants deploying green Gray Fishtag Research tags into as many stripers as possible, a separate group of captains and crews will be out in search of larger post-spawn stripers in which to deploy this season’s MiniPAT devices. In all, we are expecting to release three sat-tagged striped bass this spring.
For those coming from outside of the Raritan Bay region, there are multiple ramp options all along the Raritan Bayshore, but probably the most accommodating for a tournament crowd with best access to both bay/river and ocean fishery is the Borough of Atlantic Highlands Municipal Harbor at 2 Simon Lake Drive in Atlantic Highlands, NJ. The marina offers transient slips with fuel and pump out services, and it’s the location of a number of charter and head boats. Call them at 732-291-1670 (www.ahnj.com). And if you happen to already have a charter scheduled for May 16, let your captain know you’d like to participate in StriperQuest ’24, and get your team registered by visiting grayfishtagresearch.org/striper-quest.
