Almost there. That thought pretty much sums up the month of March for me and most anglers. Just as the off season felt like it would never end, it’s about to. In the same mindset of championships being won in the offseason, so too does a successful fishing season.
I was able to scratch the itch a bit with several shows in the New Year. The tackle bag has a few new players in it. After restocking essentials like bucktails, soft plastics and jig heads, there came some new additions in the form of larger metal lip plugs and surface lures. It’s a safe bet the opportunity to throw these in the spring will present itself. The ¼ -1-ounce jig heads that I’ll be pairing with white, yellow, pink and chartreuse soft plastics in the 3–6-inch range both in whiptail and paddle tail varieties are the first that will see some playing time. Once there’s some a consistent stretch of bright sunny days, the whole spread of small baits emerging from the sun warmed muddy bottom of the bays match these profiles perfectly. Drifting the backwater flats and casting these to the bank of the marshes, especially the mouths of creeks and estuaries is typically how most will get their first striper of the season. In my home waters of the east end, they’ll typically be resident fish in the 20–26-inch range. No trophies, but a welcomed catch after way too much couch time during the winter. I’m not really counting on those catches until the end of the month at best, after the really cold winter we had.
The metal lips and surface plugs should see some early spring action further west as those resident fish and the first of the migrators make their way North. Bunker start to appear in March, but it will be water temps that dictate how fast the bass make their trip from Maryland and New Jersey. Spooks and gliders will perform well if we see the migrating fish in coming weeks that are feeding close to the surface in the warmer segment of the water column. The metal lips while effecting just under the surface can also be adjusted to swim deeper to target larger resident fish hunkered on the bottom and expending as little energy as possible. When tinkering with any metal lips, adjust the metal eye and never the lip. The lure builder has gone to painstaking lengths to make their product swim the right pattern because of the lip. Adjusting the metal eye up or down as to which part of the water column you want to work gives you the flexibility of hooking into a solid spring striper. One other tinkering to do with metal lips if needed is only having a belly treble hook. Almost every swimming plug I have doesn’t have a rear treble. The first reason is with stripers hitting a plug from the front, it’s quite common for the rear treble to lodge itself in the gill plate. This gives the fish leverage to straighten or spit the hook. The second and I see as more important is reducing release mortality. No action was taken for the 2025 season in terms of regulations, but there was some noise of no targeting closures as an option to achieve levels the governing bodies have set for the fishery to remain sustainable. The 28–31-inch slot remains in effect and if you fished at all last year, you know full well how many over slot bass were in our waters. A single tail hook or flag (bucktail with no hook) makes for a drastic reduction in release mortality. I try not to get on my soapbox, but even a whisper of a no targeting in season closure is a terrifying thought. Let’s try to each do our part so that never becomes a realit
In five of the last seven seasons, I caught my first bass in March locally between Moriches and Shinnecock. Almost always in late March. Seeing an osprey overhead with a bunker in its talons stokes the anticipation that the first catch isn’t far off. Realizing that for seven of the last seven seasons, or more like all of the seasons of the past 15 years, once again procrastinated on gear maintenance brings me back to reality. Spotting a plug in the garage I’ve been meaning to throw but haven’t in a while often calls for swapping out the rear treble. Admiring a workhorse plug screams of desperately needing new split rings and hooks. Faded green or blue braided line on my reels needs replacing or reversing. A few seasons back I discovered from a knowledgeable fishing buddy that on a few spinning reels used for back bay outings, I rarely casted more than 1/3 of the line on the reel. To be able to cast effectively I needed the reel fully spooled. Removing the line and revealing fresh braid underneath that played the role of backing line gave no reason to buy more braid.
My editor hasn’t given me clearance to fill every page of this issue with to do lists for the boat, but we all know it’s a long one. Time spent on the boring stuff will make the exciting times that much better in just a few more weeks!
Be safe, make this season better than the last, and make memories of a lifetime!