Through the work of hundreds of individuals and dozens of environmental and angling groups, Congress declared a moratorium on the harvest of striped bass in 1984. If you haven’t read this book, I recommend, Striper Wars, by Dick Russell, 2005. It tells the story of protecting the Hudson stripers, their nursery habitat, and the revolt against overharvest of stripers and their forage up and down the coast.

Striper stocks were finally rebuilt in the late 1990s. My friends and I hit the New Jersey beaches and had incredible days of forty or fifty bass on a fly. The first couple of seasons we mainly caught schoolies with an occasional keeper over 28”. Maybe once a year on a herring run a school of big bass would feed close enough to reach. We saw no adult menhaden along the shore in spring, but we had peanut bunker along the beaches in the fall.

Tired of catching 40-50 schoolies a day from shore, I wanted to catch the big bass swimming in deeper water out of reach. In 2000 I bought a boat to use on the flats and along the coast. It was a Maverick 17 Master Angler from Captain Jeff Northrup, who owned Westport Outfitters in Connecticut. He pioneered New England flats fishing in the 1970s among the Norwalk Islands in the Long Island Sound. I kept the boat in New Jersey and fished from the southern shore of Long Island, NY to Barnegat Bay, NJ. I’d launch according to the fish location and safest wind direction. I fished it in 3-5 footers at times and as late as New Years’ Day some years during an Atlantic herring run. I remember sweeping a foot of snow of the deck wondering when I’d slip into the ocean forever. I never wore a tether or PFD vest. There was only my friends Jim Freda and Gene Quigley on the water around Christmas.

I did succeed in catching bigger fish and twenty pounders were common, but I knew there was more potential. I contacted Brad Burns, founder of Stripers Forever, who I heard was catching much bigger fish in the Elizabeth Islands. When I spoke to Brad, he candidly told me the key was the presence of big bait.

At the time in 2001, menhaden were not very abundant along the coast due to inshore overharvesting. Squid and herring were the big baits stripers were feeding on to pack on weight. Brad particularly recommended following the squid run and introduced me to handful of captains who specialized in this game. I did that for 15 summers and we fished the waters of Fishers Island Sound, Vineyard Sound and Nantucket Sound and my flats skiff sat idle. Jeff Northrup bought it back coincidentally and returned it to service.

An observant angler can watch and learn about the methods and equipment from good captains. I used my combined experience and my conversations with marine biologists to write two striper articles for Fly Fisherman Magazine. I also wrote two books on fly casting. Captain Jeff Northrup remarked recently at a fishing event, “This book is your magnum opus.”