6 posts on migration.
Striped bass spawn in tidal fresh water in spring, from mid-April into May in the Chesapeake and from late April into June in the Hudson, as the rivers warm. The fish you catch in Massachusetts did it weeks earlier, hundreds of miles south, then swam here to feed.
5 min read
Tagged striped bass left Massachusetts bays mostly in September and October, trickling out rather than leaving together. In Duxbury Bay, half were gone by the week the water averaged 62°F. The fall run is that exit, working slowly south on cooling water and shortening days.
5 min read
Tagged stripers that summer in Massachusetts spend the winter far to the south, off Virginia and on the Maryland shelf, with North Carolina a known wintering ground. Not every fish goes. Some stay in their home rivers year-round, and a Maine river has a documented group that winters there.
5 min read
Tagged striped bass stayed in one Massachusetts bay for 6 to 75 days. On a migration corridor off Maryland the same species averaged about two. Your spot is not holding a population of residents — it is holding a flow, and that changes what a good spot even means.
3 min read
Striped bass stomachs sampled off Massachusetts contained zero menhaden in June and July, then 29 to 81 percent by weight in August and September. Here is what that means for when bunker is the bait.
3 min read
Alewife start running at about 9°C, and river herring runs are over by about 20–21°C. Across twelve Massachusetts streams the northern runs go later, warmer and in a narrower window than the southern ones — so a single statewide date is wrong by construction.
3 min read
