Jersey anglers are entering the finest months of the year, more specifically, striper hounds are ready to get theirs. Striper fishing will be firing on all cylinders as November through the end of December usher in hordes of migratory bass on their way southward. From beach or boat, bass schools are blowing up bunker, rainfish and sand eel schools in relentless pursuit day in and day out. If stripers aren’t your huckleberry, then know that the black sea bass opens on November 1st through December 31st with a nice 15-fish bag limit at 12.5-inch minimum size. Blackfish also amp up big time with a 15-inch size limit from November 16th through December 31st, and a 5-fish bag. Don’t count out the bluefin tuna fishing either, as the BFT will come close enough that you can see them breaching water from the surfline.
RARITAN BAY
The striper bite is downright explosive inside the R-Bay through the end of the year. Battalions of bass will be blowing up all over on bunker schools and the chew can be literally anywhere at any time, from the Ammo Pier to Romer Shoal to Coney Island to Breezy Point to the Rip and then some. It’s easy to spot the birds diving on bait schools as bass push them up and nowhere on the planet is it more fun than right now to toss topwater poppers, spooks and stickbaits to get aggressive topwater strikes that buckle your knees on bass ranging anywhere from shorties to 40-pound beasts. There’s always the chance that gator blues pushing 14 to 18 pounds will come join the party, so be sure to have a 40 to 50-pound leader on to prevent any bite-offs if casting to both bass and bluefish.
NORTHERN COAST
World-class bassing opportunity abounds during the early part of November into the mid-month timeframe as the migratory push of bass will stick tight to Jetty Country along Asbury Park, Deal and Spring Lake to bust on bunker schools. Again, topwater fishing is primo for action, but you can always cast SP Minnows, drop paddletail shads or Ava jigs down below to jig them up as well if you mark them in 25 to 50 feet of water off the shoreline. Sea Bright always seems to be a geolocated spot they flock to every year, so it’s a good bet to start there and then work north to the Shrewsbury Rocks or south to the Squan Inlet area to find the bite. Wreck and reef fishing is off the charts for bottom brawlers. Tautog are lit inshore as they stay in 65-to-95-foot depths at the Farms, 17 Fathoms and the like, where you can also pull your lifetime share of huge dinner plate-sized porgies off the rocky structure.
CENTRAL COAST
Without a doubt, to catch stripers literally in the surf or close to shore enough, you could beach your boat in this stretch from Bay Head down through Island Beach State Park, as many times surfcasters and boaters are competing for the same schools of fish. Watch the humpback whale shows too, as they are also competing with the stripers for the omnipresent bunker and sand eel schools that flood the nearshore waters. Sand eel imitation jigs are key here, such as the Savage Gear sand eel, Tsunami sand eel, or any metals like Deadly Dicks or Ava jigs worked through the water column. Peanut bunker schools are also dominant, so always have paddletail shads in the arsenal to toss out. Night shifters along the suds will toss black Bomber plugs worked slowly back in the cuts and sloughs for bone-jarring midnight strikes. Again, blackfish are an absolutely must target species here off the Axel Carlson Reef, Mohawk Wreck and Tolten Wreck as the whitechinners will be dialed into crab baits on light 1-ounce Bottom Sweeper tog jigs sitting motionless on the bottom. Wait for the peck, then the second hit and immediately set the hook, lest you will be crabless. Most sea bass will have moved off to further-reaching wrecks and structure piles, but this year’s warm temps may have some 2 to 3-pounders still clinging to the inshore wrecks. And don’t forget about ling! The barbelled red bellied brawlers will also be around to suck down clam baits on the bottom.
OFFSHORE
What a wild bluefin tuna fishery we had last year, close to shore at this time last year, as true giants pushing 600-pound-plus were hooked in the Mud Hole, Little Italy, Monster Ledge and up toward off the Sandy Hook Reach and Long Island surfline. You can bet bluefin of some caliber will be around gobbling up sand eels, so always be prepared with an array of butterfly jigs, stickbaits and poppers if they are aggressive, but don’t be shy to set up a butterfish slick to dish out chunk baits for a bite. Most BFT anglers will troll three ballyhoo in a triangle pattern, WWWB in the spread about 300 yards for a hit from the locomotive freight trains. Looking for some bottom brawling action? This is the time of year when large cod and pollock are gravitating to the 30-to-80-mile wrecks like the Resor Wreck Triple Wrecks, Winneconne and whatnot. Drop metal jigs down and work the water column to get a strike above for pollock or bounce the bottom for cod. Black sea bass fishing in the 60-to-80-mile wrecks is absolutely lights out as true knuckleheads of 5 to 8 pounds will hit hammered diamond jigs, plus the usual squid and clam baits tipped with a 5-inch Berkeley Gulp grubtails.
As we wind up 2025, we are headed into some of the most action-packed fishing, both inshore and offshore, with a wide variety of species on tap. Plan your trips well around the weather. This is no time to worry about how cold it is outside. This is the glory time to load up a cooler full of bottomfish, to do daily battles with hundreds of bass any given day or to tie into the beast BFT of your dreams. You just have to be there to get it done!