Stripers March 01, 2010

South Jersey Outdoors
By Nick Honachefsky • March 5, 2010

The sirens have sounded as striped bass fishing in the backwaters has officially reopened. You would think it would take a few weeks to get the ball rolling with bass, but that simply is not the case. Savvy anglers have already found where some keeper-sized stripers have been holing up for the winter and there have been reports of enough short bass around to keep things interesting.

It didn't take but until noon on March 1 to weigh in the first keeper striper of the year said Ray Slemmer, Jr. of the Absecon Bay Sportsman, Absecon. "We've already had three keepers weighed in that claimed the top three prizes for our opening day contest. I didn't expect it to be this good this early, and there is definitely some bass hanging around in the backwaters." Chris McIntee, Philadelphia, checked in with the first bass of 28-1/2 inches. Jeff Normant followed up with a 10.1-pounder and another 10-pounder was weighed in the next day. Slemmer said he's hearing that the guys are casting pink or white Zoom and Hogy plastics and working them super slow, bounce-twitching them on the bottom until a bass picks it up. The strike is subtle and it feels as if there is just weight on the end of the line, but make no mistake, the bass has inhaled it, so be sure to plant the hook hard. Stripers should be hanging around in the Mullica River as well as in any backchannel, you just have to go search them out and make casts to find them.