One of the things that make striped bass such popular targets along the coast from New England to the Mid-Atlantic is their diversity. You can find them picking off crabs and shrimp along back bay sod banks, chasing herring in the roaring, rocky surf, or gorging on sand eels just offshore under a black cloud of diving birds. There are countless lures, flies, and baits that will get a striper pinned on your line. But come fall, the menhaden is king.
Sometimes referred to as “bunker” or “pogies” depending where you live, menhaden are one of the most important fish in the ocean. Adults measure 8 to 14 inches, and they’re packed with protein-rich oil that helps striped bass grow big. Although menhaden can be found along the Atlantic Coast in spring and summer, their southerly fall migration coincides with that of the bass. From New England through Delaware, fishing live menhaden is arguably the fastest way to score a striper weighing north of 30 pounds, but if you’re not used to obtaining and presenting such massive live baits, there can be a learning curve.
My good friend, Captain Eric Kerber, has been putting clients on falls cows out of Belmar, New Jersey, since 2007. Suffice it to say, the live bunker bite is his bread and butter from mid-October until just about Thanksgiving. His simple tricks for fishing these baits will have you breaking the 40-pound mark in no time.
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We’ve Hit a Snag
Menhaden aren’t usually hard to find in the fall. Even from the beach, you’ll see them out beyond the waves creating a moving piece of disturbed, rippling water on the surface. This is ideal, because if the bait is at the surface, the odds are better there are stripers in the area that are making them leery of diving. As for putting some in the live well, you’ve got two choices. You can toss a heavy, 12-foot cast net on them, or snag them individually with a weighted treble hook. The latter is more common among recreational anglers but choose your snag hook wisely.
“A cast net does less damage to the bait, but not everyone is able to throw one,” Kerber says. “Anyone can snag bunker, but you want to avoid using a snag hook that’s big, like a 12/0 or 14/0. Yes, a bigger snag hook will grab faster and easier, but if you use the smallest one possible, you’re going to wind up with healthier, livelier baits. If the snag hook rips open the bait’s belly or pierces the gills, it’s not even worth sending back out on a circle hook. It’s not going to live very long.”
When snagging bunker, you want to cast past the bait school and lock the reel immediately after touch down. As the hook falls, you’ll feel the bunker tap the tight line via the rod tip. Make a sharp, forceful sweep to the side to connect and get the bait in the boat as fast as possible. Though snag hooks remain legal to secure bait, it is no longer legal to simply open the bail after snagging and let the fish swim. You must reel it in and send it back out on a single circle hook.
Sticking Points
Where you hook a live bunker is largely a matter of opinion, though some methods do work better in particular situations than others. As an example, I’ve always preferred to run my circle hook shallow through the fish’s back just forward of the dorsal fin. In the open ocean this is fine, and it makes the bait stand out from the school because the hook location will change its swimming cadence. In areas with strong current, however, back hooking will just make the bait drag unnaturally. In that case, you want the menhaden nosed hooked.
“Nose hooking keeps the bait more streamlined in current,” says Kerber. “It allows it to swim steadily behind the boat, though there have been times when we’ve missed fish because the circle hook turns around and the point winds up in the bait’s cheek.”
According to Kerber, the way to avoid this is by bridle rigging your bunker. Using a rigging needle, he’ll pull a small rubber band through the nostrils until there is equal length on both sides. He’ll then twist the rubber band five or six times and run the circle hook through both end loops. The method allows Kerber to use smaller, lighter hooks, and stops the hook from turning around no matter how hard the bait struggles.
Seconds to Go
When a big striper is chasing your bunker, you know it. The tail beat quickens, it’ll often begin circling, and sometimes you’ll even feel the bass whack it with its tail first to stun it before Hoovering it down and taking off. How long you let it run before locking the reel and letting that circle hook dig in, however, is critical to the health of the fish.
“I tell clients to just wait a couple of seconds,” Kerber says. “People have a bad habit of waiting too long, but once that fish has that bunker, it’s usually not spitting it out. Stripers feed with suction. They inhale their food. So, if you wait too long there’s a good chance that fish will come in gut hooked.”
Because menhaden are so large and strong, it can be difficult for beginners to differentiate between a pick-up and the bait simply swimming around at a fast clip. Until you get a feel for it, use the clicker feature on your reel. When a striper takes, the sound the reel makes won’t be choppy. It’ll be a steady, high pitched, unbroken scream.
The post Quick Strike Podcast: Use This Key Baitfish to Catch Your Bass of a Lifetime appeared first on Outdoor Life.
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