Long Weekend Stripers

As most serious fly fisherman can relate to, the fish you frequently target can often evolve throughout the course of your life. Some fish you grow up with, and some fish join the journey later in life – both have a special place in your heart. For me, Striped Bass (specifically in Maine) were one of those fish that I really started to become ecstatic about later in my twenties. Over the past couple of years, I’ve continued to dedicate the time (on both the water and fly tying vice) to learn more about how to catch Stripers, and our annual trip to Maine in 2024 led to some of the best encounters I’ve had with these fish.

Similar to pervious years, we ventured to Maine in late May, and were met with the best possible weather conditions (not an exaggeration). Super sunny skies, warmer temps for the early summer, and low winds. Although Stripers typically prefer some clouds/wind/elements to really turn on the feed bag, the sunny conditions on this trip really allowed some terrific opportunities to sight fish. To mix it up from previous years, I wanted to do two things this trip when it came to fishing: throw bigger flies and find new water. Although I had a few terrific spots that produced fish on my usual clouser/smaller baitfish patterns, I really wanted to throw some larger bucktail patterns and explore my “spot” horizons. With that said, I was optimistic that this could be a fishy weekend, as I was able to catch a nice striper on a larger bucktail fly (in one of my usual areas) on the very first evening in Maine. This fish was sitting in a HEAVY outgoing tide and hammered the fly only about 5 feet from the trip of the rod, and put up quite the fight. After a few quick shots, the fish swam off strongly and I went to go celebrate with a blueberry beer.

The next day ended up being a day that really one that dreams are made of when it comes to throwing some fly line. My girlfriend and I slept in a bit, picked up some donuts, and arrived to a new fishing area that I wanted to check out by about 10am. I had my same larger bucktail fly on from the evening before, along with an intermediate sinking line to help get the fly down if current was present. Within about 30-minutes of walking the beach and jetty looking for fish, I couldn’t believe my eyes…there was a school of about 25-35 striped bass circling the beach about 80 feet off the shore. I sat and watched these fish slowly get closer to the rocks/shore, and tried to keep my heartbeat down and fly line ready. The school of fish settled in about 60 feet out and I let out a long cast…let the big fly slowly sink…did some quick sporadic strips…and the fish were on it! Four to five fish started chasing but not committing, until finally a BIG striper came up and engulfed it. Striper on! The fight that ensued became utter chaos from the rocks, and I was able to fortunately land this fish for an awesome picture. This was my largest striper to date, and I was extremely grateful for the moment.

For the next hour, the school continued to patrol the area, and I was able to land 3 more fish (had another get off by the rocks). All of the fish were extremely nice, but not as big as the first one). Similar to the first fish, these stripers were all over the larger fly – just had to adjust the strip based on the body language of the fish. I threw to one specific fish multiple times, until finally I ripped the fly as fast as I could and then it finally hammered it. You could tell that the sunny conditions definitely had these fish a little skeptical to eat, but the sheer number of fish in the school kept them aggressive enough (and competitive to beat each other to the fly) where it didn’t prevent fish from being caught.

As for the final day of the weekend, we returned to the same area, and was able to land one smaller Striper and hook another. The large school was no longer there, but I noticed some fish sitting in the fast current a little bit closer towards a river mouth. Had a few very nice fish (including one possibly bigger than the first day) chase the bigger flies in, but not commit. I ultimately down sized the fly to focus on the smaller fish I was seeing, and this proved to work.