Bass, Striped
Description
During his years in the United States Congress in the 1800s, noted statesman Daniel Webster is said to have thrown flies to striped bass in the Potomac River during legislative breaks. A species that has been pursued with the fly rod for many generations, the striped bass is the largest member of the sea bass family, often called "temperate" or "true" bass to distinguish it from largemouth, smallmouth and spotted bass, which are actually members of the sunfish family. Striped bass are silvery, shading to olive-green on the back and white on the belly, with seven or eight uninterrupted horizontal stripes on each side of the body. As with other true basses, the dorsal fin is separated into spiny and soft-rayed portions.
Of all its locations and iterations, the New England coastal states seem to be the best place to catch trophy striped bass. The islands of Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket and Cape Cod in Massachusetts are a striper fisherman’s playground. Additionally, the coast of Rhode Island, as well as eastern Long Island, New York, particularly Montauk, are prime striped bass locations. Due to their great size range and the varied bait on which they feed, striped bass can be pursued with a variety of fly gear. Small schoolies feeding on sand eels can be cast to with heavyweight trout gear, while heavy cows feeding on large squid in offshore rips may require as much as a ten or eleven-weight rod rigged with a fast sinking shooting head system.
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Habitat
The striped bass is anadromous and native to a variety of habitats, including shores, bays, and estuaries. Generally, striped bass prefer current and structure. They can most often be found in coastal rips, rock piles, off jetties and at current outflows. Stipers can also be found on shallow sand flats and in freshwater lakes and rivers.
Range
The striped bass is a coastal species that moves far upstream during spawning migrations in coastal rivers. The native range is along the Atlantic coast east of the Appalachian Mountains from New Brunswick south to Florida and west into Louisiana. The species has been introduced at scattered locations throughout the central US, as far west as the Colorado River in Arizona, and at various sites in California.
