On the Water's weekly Striper Migration Report for May 12 reads like a green light up and down the New England coast. Hosts Matt and Johnny tracked a wave of post-spawn 40-pound class striped bass running from the Maryland surf all the way to Boston Harbor, called the greater New York area the 'cow pasture' for trophy fish, and pointed anglers at the May new moon as the next inflection point in the migration.
The headline observation was the speed of the push. "It was a big big week in terms of fish movement in New England," Matt told viewers. "Pretty much anywhere from western Long Island Sound in the Connecticut area all the way up to now I would say Boston, even the north shore of Boston. We heard of some fish trickling in up into Boston Harbor and a lot of fish have moved through the canal over the past week."
Johnny credited a four-day southwest blow for the unusually fast move. "A lot of it was probably that sustained southwest wind we had last week," he said. "We had like three four days in a row of gusts up to 40 mph just consistently pushing out of the west and southwest. And I think that definitely helped move some of those fish up the coast."
The trophy class section of the migration map now stretches from the Maryland surf to central Long Island Sound, with the New York / North Jersey corridor as the standout. "By all accounts, the greater New York area, I would say from like North Jersey to Long Island, is kind of like the cow pasture right now," Matt said. "Some of those big post-spawn Chesapeake and Delaware River fish are bumping into each other as they move up the coast. And with plenty of bunker around, they're feeding heavily prior to the new moon this Saturday."
The Hudson River, meanwhile, is loaded with breeders staging to spawn. "There's quite literally schools of bass that are spanning for miles and miles at a time right now in the Hudson," Matt said. "Based on the report I received from Captain Chris Oliver of Keeping It Real Sport Fishing, who I'll be joining on the water tomorrow in the Poughkeepsie area, a lot of those fish that his charters are catching look to be around 25 to 35 pounds."
New Jersey's surf and jetty bite is described as wide open from clams to bunker chunks to swim shads. "In southern New Jersey, the beaches and jetties are giving up 40-inch class fish on everything from clams and bunker chunks to minnow plugs, swim shads, pencil poppers — you name it, they're eating it," Matt said. Just north, off Raritan Bay, the migratory cows are sitting on deep bunker schools. "True migratory cows are feeding on bunker in the ocean. So anglers fishing off like Monmouth and Ocean counties are finding stripers to 50 inches on glide baits, metal lips, and eels. Think deep diving metal lips. You know, you want to get down to those bunker schools. They're not always showing on the surface."
The report quotes friend of the show Jack Larazada catching eight 40-pound class bass in a single night on glide baits in the ocean — and stresses that the two-to-three days bracketing the new moon are the window to chase the same fish.
Cape Cod has both extremes in play, with bunker and herring driving the south side and Buzzards Bay action and squid filling in around Hyannis and Monomoy. Buzzards Bay produced 40-inch fish on a flutter spoon over the weekend, a sign Matt and Johnny called early for that fishery. "To have big fish in here that early — we'd love to see those schoolies, but not going to hear any complaints from us," Matt said.
Guest reporter Captain Dave Flanigan of North Island Fly in Smithtown, New York, briefed the Western and Central Long Island Sound. The average class through the past week, he said, was 15 to 20 pounds with a handful pushing 30. "What we're really focusing on is open water fishing right now," Flanigan said. "Looking for signs of life — birds, big baits, markings on my depth finder in an area where you might not normally look for them. You'll find plenty of fish on these reefs and everything that everybody likes to fish, but for me, it seems like the season's a little behind right now."
The Canyon Runner segment overlaid the migration on water temperature, pushing anglers towards the warmer pockets in the backwaters of Long Island Sound and tracking the forecast for the eastern Sound to slip above 50 degrees by the week's end. "This is what we've been looking for," the Canyon Runner presenter said, calling for fishing to switch on through Montauk and the eastern Sound as the water climbed.
The report closed on a tackle tip the show called overdue — reel maintenance. Rinse from the top down with soft, gentle warm water, loosen drags when storing, and use rubbing alcohol and a Q-tip around the spool seat for sticky drags. The broader message for the week, however, was the same as the migration map: get to the moon tides, and fish hard.