There are smaller stripers around as well during the summer months. They prefer the winding, shallow creeks that snake though the marsh. These creeks hold an abundance of worms, shrimp and small crabs and baitfish. Time sunrise with a low tide and you may witness small bass feeding in less than a foot of water, rooting in the mud while their tails flop on the surface. Because these creeks are shallow and very tide-dependant, working them on an incoming tide will ensure you don’t go aground with no way out. Creek stripers are mostly 14- to 24-inch fish, with the occasional 28-incher in the mix, so they are heaps of fun when fished with 6- or 7-weight fly rods. Ultralight spinning gear can be a blast also. Any striper, no matter the size, fights like the dickens when hooked in shallow water. Small chartreuse-and-white Clouser Minnows work well, and poppers can provide some fun surface action. Four-inch pearl or chartreuse Sluggos or similar jerkbaits fished on a weedless hook without added weight are another excellent option.
Fall Fireworks
While hard to believe, coastal pelagic fish such as false albacore and green bonito can be caught in Northeast salt marshes in late August and September. Because there are such large concentrations of silverside and other small bait in these bays, they do come in to feed on occasion.
I’ve witnessed green bonito and false albacore blitzing schools of bait in as little as three feet of water! Catching them is extremely difficult however, and requires quite a bit of luck. These fish move so fast that getting close to them and getting a cast off before they are gone is close to impossible. Having a fly or a small tin in the water when they happen to come by is really the only way to get a hookup.
Fall sees extraordinary numbers of juvenile menhaden (peanut bunker). These menhaden hatch and flood out of the creeks and coves, creating all sorts of action. Bluefish are the first to take advantage of this, but stripers are not far behind. As fall progresses, so do the baitfish supply and number of stripers.
Anglers pole alnog a margin of salt marsh abutting New York City.
Peanut bunker congregate in shallow water and this can create perhaps the best shallow-water marsh fishing of the year. Furthermore, the summer microscopic blooms begin to die off in mid October and the winter blooms haven’t taken hold yet, setting the stage for the best marsh sight fishing of the year. When it is really going off, blitzes in such shallow water are a spectacle. In October and November the stripers really go on the feed and just about anything works, but foam poppers fished on light fly rods are especially effective and provide some heart-stopping strikes. Fly anglers using intermediate lines and 3- to 4-inch broad-profile flies also do well, sometimes taking fish in the 20-pound-plus category. By mid to late November, herring may make an appearance, the sole reason that big stripers stick around. Expect to catch your biggest marsh striper of the year during this time.
