Striped Bass

Season in Connecticut

Peak months: May, Jun, Sep, Oct.

OTW 2017: Housatonic school bass November through May; OTW Jan 2023: holdovers in the Thames and Connecticut River estuaries. OTW April 2025: more bass move east as April goes on. OTW May 2025: Stratford excellent the first week of May. OTW July 2025: big resident fish in the eastern Sound June to October, mostly a night bite in July and August. OTW Oct 2025: excellent, blitzing bass of all sizes. (Our inference)

Season by region

Where to find them

Reefs and rips: Watch Hill, the Race, Plum Gut, Bartlett Reef, Black Point, Hatchett Reef, Long Sand Shoal, Southwest Reef, Sixmile Reef, Falkner Island, Stratford Shoal, Penfield Reef and the Norwalk Islands (CT DEEP); boulder fields, rocky points and marsh channels from shore at first light; the lower Housatonic for winter holdovers.

From the wash out past the bar; spring and fall blitzes on bunker, sand eels and small bait.

What to look for

Bunker schools being pushed, birds over sand eels or rainbait, rips and drop-offs where waves make turbulence, inlet current at night.

What to throw

Bucktail or jighead with a 4 to 5 in paddle tail1/2 to 1 oz, 4 to 5 in tail. Slow hops along the bottom: lift, drop, let it touch, repeat.

Soft-plastic eel or stickbait (Slug-Go, GT Eel style)Weightless, or 3/8 to 3/4 oz jighead oz, 9 to 13.5 in. Weightless on top when fish are active or at first light; weighted versions drifted through rips, twitched through boulders or dead-sticked near bottom.

Swimming minnow plug (Yo-Zuri Crystal Minnow style)3/4 to 1 oz, 4 to 5 in. Steady medium retrieve with occasional twitches and pauses.

Pencil popper1 to 5 oz, Sized to the bait, from silversides to adult bunker. Slow and deliberate, speeding up when a fish shows interest; or hold the rod tip and bounce it hard while barely advancing the plug so it churns in place.

Bait

Live eels, Live bunker (menhaden), Live mackerel, Bunker or mackerel chunks, Cut squid, herring, crabs, Live spot (summer, North Shore). Fish-finder with a pyramid sinker and a long leader, with a float near the hook to keep the bait off the bottom away from crabs and skates. Use a circle hook with bait..

Leader

NY Sea Grant: light (6 to 12 lb) to medium (20 lb) line on a spinning rod; heavier surf outfits for big fish around rocks.

Common mistakes

• Leaving bait on the bottom for crabs and skates (NY Sea Grant floats it up)
• Using a J hook with bait instead of a circle hook
• Fishing mid-day flat calm when the fish feed after dark and at dawn

Landing

Let a wave carry it up the beach; release fish should stay in the water.

Handling

• Sharp dorsal spines
• Sharp gill cover edges

Keep released fish in the water, support the belly, and use a circle hook with bait. ASMFC estimates about 9 percent of released stripers die, so handle quickly.

Keep or release

Release fish outside the slot quickly; in summer the eastern Sound has sandbar sharks that hit hooked bass, so land fish without reaching into the water (OTW July 2025).

Recipes for striped bass

Typical: Schoolies (10 to 20 in in the Housatonic) to slot fish. Large: Fish over 30 lb in the western Sound in May; 40 in class fish in the eastern Sound.

Limits

FishOS has not checked the CT limits yet. Check the size, bag and season rules with the Connecticut DEEP Marine Fisheries before you keep a fish.

Sources

• On The Water: Housatonic Holdovers (Anthony Sepe, 2017) (Angler knowledge)
• On The Water: Connecticut Fishing Report, Jan 12 2023 (Dan's Bait, Black Hall Outfitters) (Angler knowledge)
• On The Water: What's Biting in April in Connecticut? (2025) (Angler knowledge)
• On The Water: What's Biting in May in Connecticut? (Elser, Rayner, 2025) (Angler knowledge)
• On The Water: What's Biting in July in Connecticut? (Elser, Rayner, 2025) (Angler knowledge)
• On The Water: Connecticut Fishing Report, Oct 16 2025 (Black Hall Outfitters, Middlebank) (Angler knowledge)
• The Fisherman: Too Warm, Or Too Cold? Species' Preferred Temperature Ranges (Aguiar, 2023) (Angler knowledge)
• On The Water: Spring Fly Fishing for Striped Bass (Barrett, 2022) (Angler knowledge)
• US FWS species profile FWS/OBS-82/11.8: striped bass, Mid-Atlantic (Fay, Neves and Pardue, 1983), mirror copy (Official source)
• New York Sea Grant fish profile: Striped Bass (Cornell, 2001) (Official source)
• On The Water: Long Island and NYC Fishing Report, March 21, 2024 (Angler knowledge)
• CT DEEP marine fishing report, July 30 2011 (reposted on Patch) (Official source)

All the fish of Connecticut