Stalking The Shallows For Stripers

True tidal flats are those mostly sandy areas that are void of water at low tide but then fill with the incoming tide. At high tide there may be only 4 feet of water a half-mile out from shore. The more gradual the bottom drops off, the longer the flats extend toward a depth where ocean water is found even at low tide. Tidal flats can be found up and down the Eastern Seaboard, and I tend to focus on the ones in my home state of Massachusetts.

Cape Cod Bay has scores of tidal flats, from small ones without a name to the large expanses such as the Brewster Flats (shown here) and Chapin Flats. And I’ve had good luck fishing flats on the Merrimack River and some no-name flats in Buzzards Bay. They are especially attractive to striped bass in the spring because these flats often have the warmest water – at low tide the sand can bake in the sun, and even at high tide the shallow water retains its warmth.

When my fishing buddy Adam and I made our first forays onto the flats we were cautious about having the boat’s propeller hit the sand and the concern over getting stuck on an outgoing tide. We soon developed our roles to mitigate the problem: Adam would stay at the helm, keeping us under 5 knots, and I’d stand on a cooler in the bow giving me some elevation to spot any rocks or sandbars ahead.

Standing on the cooler was also useful in spotting schools of stripers, and polarized sunglasses were essential. I began to notice my assumption that the bottom was relatively uniform was all wrong: There were channels, weed beds, and even the occasional rock – some as big as a car. Scouting and using Adam’s depth finder were essential for not running aground or damaging the prop and hull.

There were some sections of flats that Adam knew well from his years of kayaking, and he could maneuver his boat through myriad channels right up to the grass beds along the shore. Still, I’d stand on the cooler just in case.

The first time we took the 18-foot Scout bay boat into just 2 feet of water I wondered why. But from my perch on the cooler the answer became clear; giant stripers were there. Sometimes entire schools, other times loners.

The “cooler scouting” did more for my understanding of the habits of striped bass than any other form of education. The knowledge gained from having my eyes approximately 7 or 8 feet above the water was incomparable. I could only imagine the detail that an osprey saw when looking down.

Shrimp, crabs, and sand eels are at home in the flats, and that brings in the predatory fish. On some of our earlier forays I mistook huge schools of stripers for weed beds, but after hours on the cooler perch, my eyes were sensitive to movement. Fish would hear or see the boat coming, and cruise out of the way, often making their escape at the 10 o’clock and 2 o’clock hands of the clock (with the bow pointing at “noon”). The best way to describe seeing the bass on the sand while in a moving boat is like looking out your car window at the pavement as you slowly roll down a beat-up back road. Fresh tar has been put over cracks on the road, and those dark spots remind me of the bass. (More than once after a day of scouting on the boat, I’ve tried to fall asleep in bed and all I see are black “tar” marks going by.)

We never tried poling the boat with the motor off, because often we had to spend more than an hour looking for fish. But once we found them, we’d cut the motor and drift. We figured if we saw even just a couple of bass, there might be more in the area, and we’d let the wind and current carry the boat and hopefully intersect with more stripers. That often happened. Wind could be our enemy or friend depending on how much it was blowing. I found that 5 to 10 knots moved us along quite nicely, and sometimes we’d cast for half an hour and never start the engine. Too much wind would bring us quickly to the fish and our casting time was cut short before they spooked. Dead calm was what I dreaded most, because we barely moved and I’m an impatient fisherman. Sometimes, however, I’d be surprised on a windless day and see fish coming toward the boat, not veering off until 10 feet away. But perfectly calm seas seem to make the fish especially wary about taking a fly or lure. Some wind is better, and wind along with low light is best. The fish are more aggressive.

I began to notice that a school of stripers was usually uniform in size. “Rats,” the smallest ones of about a foot long, tended to swim with other rats. Schoolies, those fish I classify in the 17- to 27-inch range, stayed with fish their own size. And “nice fish,” those of 28 to 39 inches, all seemed to stay with like-sized fish. Even the hogs – those 40 inches or greater – stuck together. I can understand this behavior with bluefish, where the big will cannibalize the little ones, but I wasn’t aware that stripers did the same. Yet, I’m sure a big striper – being opportunistic – wouldn’t turn down a very small relative, and I’ll bet that innate fear of bigger fish keeps the fish schooling with similar sized ones. (A fishing friend reported finding small striped bass fry in the stomach of a big one.)

While this observation of fish keeping within their own class size seems accurate most of the time – every now and then we’d find a keeper bass hanging on the fringe of a school of smaller size fish. And that exception is why I always take a few casts even when the fish I can see are mere toddlers.

Adding to the challenge of flats fishing is that fish in shallow water spook easily. And who can blame them? They can’t dive and hide, and their dark backs stand out from the sandy bottom. Instinctively, small striped bass know they take a risk of being plucked from the sea by a bird of prey such as an osprey, and their wariness tends to increase as spring turns to summer. Perhaps this is because of the rise in fishing pressure or the influx of more predators such as seals and sharks.

Poor casts can scare the fish as well. It’s best to have your lure land in front of the fish at least 6 feet away and then retrieve it away from the fish. If you put the cast right on their heads, most fish will scatter (although every now and then I’ve seen a big hog inhale the offering immediately – maybe they think a bird dropped it from the sky). But, generally speaking, you don’t want to do anything to put the fish on edge. Avoid casting over the pod of stripers because your lure will be coming at them, which doesn’t happen very often in the natural world. Bait flees big fish; it doesn’t come toward them.

My favorite lure on the flats is a white or silver Sluggo, about 8 to 10 inches long, fished on the surface. By constantly jerking the rod tip, the Sluggo sends out ripples and sometimes a small splash of water. Stripers find it irresistible, and will almost always follow a Sluggo on a medium retrieve. That doesn’t mean they’ll bite it, so vary the speed of your retrieve until you find the sweet spot. Sometimes I’ll cast 20 or 30 times and then finally a single fish – either hungry or just pissed off by the teasing nature of the lure – will attack it.

If you see a near-miss or get a strike but the hook didn’t find purchase, immediately stop your retrieve for just a second or two, then begin again. Countless times, that’s when the striper inhales the bait, most likely thinking it was injured and now it’s getting away. This is easier said than done because most fisherman on a near-miss get a shot of adrenaline and increase the speed of the retrieve, which is the opposite of what you should do. Make your bait look like it was stunned for a second, then continue the retrieve and get ready for a savage hit.

Should you find the stripers reluctant to hit on the surface, stay with a soft plastic white or silver Sluggo, or a similar type of lure, but add weight so the lure rides a couple feet below the surface. And if that doesn’t work, go to an extremely small size, perhaps 4 inches.

Later in my angling days I fished a little bit with a fly rod, and there were many advantages to its “soft” presentation. And of course even the smallest striper feels bigger on a fly rod. Fly fisherman also have the advantage of working smaller offerings, and often that’s key. So many times while standing on the cooler I’d see stripers focused only on one kind of bait at a certain size and watch them ignore casts that Adam and I made with anything that wasn’t a perfect match. Seeing stripers locked into a certain bait, sometimes incredibly small, and ignore every lure in your tackle box is frustrating indeed. Yet it’s still a thing of beauty – feeding fish can fuel winter dreams.