BASS FISHINGBass Fishing Sports Blog

My husband just went fishing with his buddies and brought back a mess of cleaned striper filets. Are they a real heavy fishy taste? What is the best way to cook them? I appreciate the help, thanks.

I love striped bass!!! I usually fry them with a mixture of flour and cornmeal….but here are a couple other ways to make them

STRIPE BASS WITH LEMON JUICE AND WINE

3 lb. stripe bass, cleaned with head removed
2 tbsp. lemon juice
3 oz. Chablis wine
3 oz. Seltzer water
1/2 tsp. celery powder
1/8 tsp. black pepper
Salt to taste
1 1/2 oz. corn oil
1/4 tsp. marjoram spice
1/2 tsp. garlic powder

Preheat oven 375 degrees. Use pan large enough to hold fish and line it with aluminum foil. Place fish on top of the foil and make a border around edges with the foil to confine the fish. (This is done to keep the ingredients around the fish.) Place all the ingredients on top of the fish. Bake for 50-55 minutes. Remove and serve. makes 4-6 servings.

BAKED STRIPED BASS WITH FENNEL

1 lg. fennel bulb (including stems and feathery leaves)
1/4 c. olive oil
2 garlic cloves, peeled and minced
Salt and pepper to taste (corn ground pepper)
1/4 c. chopped Italian parsley
1 striped bass
Juice of 1/2 lemon
1/2 c. ginger ale
1-2 bunches of fresh dill-parsley garnish

(5-7 pound before dressing with backbone removed and scaled. Optional to leave head and tail on).
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Cut fennel bulb into slices and then into thin strips. Remove stems and leaves. Heat olive oil in small skillet and saute fennel slices and 1/2 of the garlic covered until just tender (approximately 10 minutes). With slotted spoon, transfer fennel to a bowl, season with salt and pepper to taste and arrange the bass in an oiled shallow baking dish and spread it open.

Lay the cooked fennel mixture down center of bass and arrange a few sprigs on top of mixture. Sprinkle with lemon juice. Close the fish – tie together with kitchen twine in 2 or 3 pieces. Season outside of fish with salt and pepper and rub with remaining garlic.

Pour reserved oil over fish and lay fennel stems on top. Pour ginger ale into the dish. Bake on middle rack of oven. Bake 10 minutes per inch of thickness of thickest part. Baste often. Ready when opaque and flakes slightly when probed with a fork. Remove string and enjoy.

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I usually fish of the rocks and the surf. Some people tell me to use clams and oysters. is there any live bait that is very effective? What do you suggest? What should I use? Thanks!
Thanks!

(Its October everywhere)
Live eels are the best bait hands down for striped bass. Eels are a predator to the striped bass and bass will attack eels even if they arent hungry. why you question? because eels eat striped bass eggs, so the bass will bite the head off of an eel even if they dont eat the eel. so to put the eel on your hook pass the hook through its lower jaw. Fish at night, its when the largest striped bass make their go and hunt.

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Eels? I dunno… sounds fishy to me!

In all seriousness though you can't go wrong with a Bucktail Jig in the fall. I've been fishing all my life and no matter what I've tried I always fall back to the bucktail jig when other lures aren't working and had fantastic success with it for smallmouth, largemouth and striped bass.

Beachbum is right, Live eels are one of the top go to baits during the fall run, but I would still have Clam bellies, Shad, Bunker, Plugs, 9" Slug go's, Diamond jigs, and more during the fall run. its that time of years when you don't want to be small on any bait.

LOCAL ANGLERS may know that a striped bass will streak through the surf at 20 knots with a plug stuck in its lip. We know that a lingcod will bulldog and hunker like no other fish of the reefs can. We know that a large bat ray can run with such unstoppable force that we call it the “mud marlin.” and we know that a 100-pound sturgeon can empty a respectable spool of 30-pound line.

But the truth is, we’ve got things still to learn about fighting fish if we haven’t set the hook on a bonefish. this dainty tropical beauty is deceptively powerful — perhaps the strongest fish that swims, pound for pound. Local glide fisherman Larry Lack recently returned from Abaco Island in the Bahamas, where the Novato resident says he was “sightseeing” with his wife, Kathy, but in fact squandered much of his vacation tiptoeing through knee-deep water with his glide rod.

Here, Lack managed to do business with several feisty bonefish — the goal of most anglers who make pilgrimages to the Florida flats. The biggest was just 26 inches long, but it fought like only a bonefish can: after learning that an enticing shrimp that fell from the sky in front of its nose was only a nasty steel barb wrapped in feathers, the “bone” panicked and went running for Bermuda at 30 knots. Moments later, Lack’s reel had been liberated of almost enough line to span the length of three football fields. he inched the fish back as it paced over the shallow sand flats, against the bowed length of the glide rod, and when it saw Lack’s feet in the water, it took another 600-foot sprint across the flats.

Lack eventually landed the fish — victory, for what it’s worth in the game of catch-and-release fishing. As he posed for a snapshot, the bonefish’s thickly muscled flank quivered nervously in his hand.

“They’re built like torpedoes,” Lack noted. “They’re just a round slab of solid muscle.”

The Lacks also visited the Florida Keys and fished together one night for tarpon, those silvery, lumbering giants that can outweigh a linebacker and leap like a sailfish. The moon was waning, and the air was balmy as the Lacks’ skiff, manned by a local guide, drifted at walking speed through the island channels. In the shallow water below, crabs and shrimp, uplifted by the current, tumbled along the sandy bottom and provided a twilight banquet for fish. Among them were tarpon, which often feed nocturnally.

The Lacks trailed their glide lines behind the boat, and though Larry failed to draw a strike, Kathy drew three. each fish leapt dramatically, posing in mid-air in the moonlight before crashing back into the water. Two shook the hook, but Kathy did connect firmly with one tarpon. A heavyweight, it wore her out after 15 minutes, at which point Larry took the rod and played the fish for 25 minutes before it surrendered at the boat side.

Fishing guides in the Bahamas consider a tarpon to be “landed” once the wire leader touches the rod tip, the thought being never to actually remove the fish from the water. they don’t even remove the hook from the mouth, considering it simpler on the fish to simply break the line at the eye.

The dread, Lack explains, is of sharks.

“There are lots of huge hammerheads in the Bahamas that would like to eat a tarpon, and if you release them dead tired, the sharks can catch them,” he said.

But this tarpon — a six-footer and 100-plus pounds — dashed away energetically. Hammerheads sluggishly hunkered in the channels, waiting for weaker prey, while the Florida sky stained pink with sunrise.

We were still sleeping, meanwhile — except those few who have been nailing striped bass in the surf before daylight. other early risers have tried for salmon, though mostly with lukewarm results. The huge schools remain off the radar of local captains, and most party boats are scoring less than a fish per rod, with the best action 10 to 15 miles southwest of Half Moon Bay. inside the Golden Gate, sturgeon fishing remains hot in San Pablo Bay and the halibut bite is growing warm at Alameda.

Alastair Bland is a Bay Area fisherman. Send him tales, photos or video to allybland@yahoo.com or call the IJ sports desk at 382-7206. Check out his blog at blogs.marinij.com/fishing_in_marin/

In the first update to a 17-year-ancient guide on how safe it is to eat fish caught in San Francisco Bay, state health leaders have relaxed some warnings but caution that children and women of childbearing age should not eat perch, white sturgeon, shark or striped bass.

Mercury and PCBs have rendered some of the bay’s most well loved sport fish unsafe in any amount for children and woman younger than 45, according to the guidelines.

And perch from San Francisco Bay are unsafe for anyone to eat, the guidelines say. But for men and women older than 45, the state has found it is significantly safer to eat striped bass than previously thought.

Since 1994, anglers were warned that no one should eat more than two servings of striped bass per month and that striped bass longer than 35 inches should not be eaten.

The new guidelines say men and women older than 45 can safely eat striped bass twice a week.

“Eating fish is excellent for you, especially fatty fish,” said Sam Delson, spokesman for the state Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment. “But you need to be careful about contaminants in the fish.”

The guidelines rely on new information about the concentration of chemicals in fish species collected around the bay and how those contaminants can affect the health of people who eat them.

In small, the guidelines are for two groups: the first is for children and women to age 45, while the second is for men and women over 45, who are assumed to be past childbearing age.

Children and women of childbearing age also should not eat shark, striped bass or white sturgeon. For this group, the guidelines say it is safe to eat two servings per week of salmon and some other kinds of fish or one serving per week of halibut or white croaker.

For men and women over 45, seven servings per week of salmon or two servings per week of striped bass and other kinds of fish is OK.

State officials plot to print brochures and post signs with the new guidelines, but details, including languages on the signs, have not been worked out.

More information about the guidelines is available at oehha.ca.gov/fish/nor_cal/2011sfbay.html.

Her's a small information that may help you.
Bait Fishing
Technique
This can be done from a boat (or if you really want to, from the shore). Anchor your boat, set your reel in the free spool position, and cast out a sliding sinker rig with a huge bait hook. use enough weight on the rig to prevent the current from causing it to drift. Watch your rod tip carefully. at the slightest nibble, point your rod toward the fish and let about 5-10 feet of line play out. The fish should respond strongly, at which point you can quickly raise the rod up to set the hook.

Bait
Threadfin shad
Anchovies
Sardines (side fillet if large)
Shiners
Blood worms (cover the hook tip with the worm)
Mudsuckers
Bullheads
Ghost shrimp or grass shrimp

Tackle & Equipment
Use a lightweight black bass tackle.

Best Bets
Bait fishing is also good for catching stripers in the Delta and North San Francisco Bay areas described above for trolling.

Casting
Technique
Casting can be done from the shore, from a boat, or in the surf. Like largemouth bass casting, it is usually best to cast around structures on fast moving, incoming tides. Look for birds feeding on shad near the surface to tip off the location of stripers.

Lure
For bay casting, use 1/2 ounce Hair-Raisers, Cordell Spots or Lucky 13's. For lake casting, use shad-patterned surface plugs or 1/2 ounce Krocodiles or Kastmasters. For surf casting, use Rebel or Rapala lures.

I've only fished for them on the east coast. The best luck I've had is with buying a box of whole squid and sitting the line straight down off of a pier. I've also fished off of rocks and had good luck. Be careful to use really good line or they will snap it! For the squid, take your knife and just scrape off the outside dull looking stuff. make it shiny and white. I've also had good luck with using baitfish. Catch small fish such as spot and then just leave it on the line. Trust me, you will feel the difference from a small spot to a striper. I've seen people have decent luck with about 6 inch eels as well, but I don't prefer them. I wish you luck!

I reckon it would somewhat depend on where you are. I've never fished stripers on the west coast, but I have on the north east coast (Maine and Rhode Island). The best luck I had was with cut baitfish, pogie in R.I. and mackerel in Me. Watch for the bluefish to start hitting a school of baitfish on the top, then fish your cutbait on the bottom in that area. The stripers follow the bluefish and pick up the pieces of baitfish that the blues tear up on the surface. I've also had good luck on live eels, fresh squid, and Kastmaster spoons.

Bunker is the best bait to use. it depends where you are on the coast. some people like to snag and drop them and others like to chunk them

Dont make me quote bill Dance. Too late. " I have trad and trad to make yoo people know that ….the stripe..ed bayus is lak all fish globally and will react the same according to structure and water tempature. Knowin the fish's inviirunment is key to ay successful day on the water."

cast bait in water and go away slowly from the dam.

A rod, reel and a lure.

im fishing in the california, delta

Huge swimbaits resembling rainbow trout.

If there feeding on top of the water use a popper, I fish in Iowa and in late summer is when the stripers like feeding on top of the water, last year I caught about 70 stripers in less than 2 hours, every cast I caught a fish, live shad is excellent to use also if there in deeper water

hi im looking for a light tackle spinning reel for striped bass fishing. i am going to pair it with a 6'6" rod. i have a budget of about 50-150 dollars. what reel is the best for this kind of fishing?

(Washington, D.C., may 11, 2011) a second wave of mysterious pelican injuries and deaths has occurred in the past several weeks at Topsail Island in North Carolina following earlier incidents about six months ago in which about 250 pelicans died as a result of still undetermined causes.

Necropsies in the fall of 2010 performed at the University of Georgia on the first group of Brown Pelicans were inconclusive as to cause of injury though there was no evidence of toxicological causes such as poisons. The newly found birds have also been sent to the university for analysis.

This recent incident involves about 30 pelicans that washed up on the shores either dead or so terribly injured that they had to be euthanized. In an interview with WNCT-TV, Toni O’Neil of the Possumwood Acres Wildlife Sanctuary commented on the injuries to one bird “… [it] looks like a bomb has gone off in the wing. It’s that shattered and smashed so completely".

a taskforce, including officials from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, as well as state officials, was formed to investigate the deaths, but so far has not determined a cause. The first dead birds began washing up on shore in November.

“Mass bird deaths such as this are certainly troubling and need to be investigated. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, about 160 mass wildlife death events are recorded in the U.S. each year. Sometimes they are weather related and sometimes they are caused by pollution, parasites, or diseases, but they frequently have a human component,” said Dr. Moira McKernan, Director of the Pesticides and Birds Program at American Bird Conservancy, the nation’s leading bird conservation organization.

“Certain types of injuries to pelicans such as broken beaks and gashes on the wings are consistent with post mortem scavenging by crabs or other animals, either in the water or onshore, and need not indicate deliberate wounding as a cause of death. however, scavenging injuries would seem a much less likely cause in this case since a number of the birds were found still alive,” she said.

“what is also significant is the number of bird deaths that go unreported or unrecorded each year because they each occur in smaller numbers and do not command media attention. These include deaths from pesticides and other toxins such as lead from spent ammunition, collisions with communication towers, buildings, or wind turbines, and free-roaming cats. Their cumulative impact, however, is significant, and may total more than one and a half billion birds each year,” said Dr. McKernan.

The Brown Pelican is found along ocean shores from the Gulf Coast to the Chesapeake Bay, and in southern California. It is the only North American pelican that plunge-dives to catch its food. It may have a wingspan of up to seven feet and weighs about eight pounds. following rapid and severe declines in Brown Pelican populations in the 1960s and ‘70s due to DDT use, the species was listed under the Endangered Species Act. after the DDT ban and concerted conservation efforts, the species recovered and was delisted in 2009.

American Bird Conservancy (abcbirds.org) conserves native birds and their habitats throughout the Americas by safeguarding the rarest species, conserving and restoring habitats, and reducing threats while building capacity in the bird conservation movement. ABC is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit membership organization that is consistently awarded a high rating by the independent group, Charity Navigator.