Stripers are the backbone of sport fishing in Massachusetts. They get big, they fight hard, they're plentiful, and they hit in many different ways. You can catch them by trolling passively, trolling actively (wire-line jigging), chunking bait, or, my favorite--sightcasting to fish that are cruising the flats or that are busting on bait. So far we've almost cracked the magical 50 pound ceiling a few times while trolling and have landed stripers to almost 40 pounds on light tackle spinning gear. Not bad!
We find sight fishing for striped bass in the southern parts of Cape Cod bay quite excellent in June, while Buzzards Bay becomes a mecca come fall. In addition, there are great populations of striped bass in Plymouth Bay that can be caught on the flats in 2-4 feet of water! That's a blast on light tackle. Sight fishing in 2008 around Provincetown, Race Point, and Peaked Hill Bar were great. We crushed the stripers using my homemade rubber baits, I call Tuna Candy. We used light spinning rods and just beat them up for much of the late spring and early summer. (Then the tuna moved in and we fished for them).
With stripers, we often get bluefish as well. Great fighting fish, but their taste is nothing compared to the taste and texture of the striped bass.
