Follow the Cold Snap Pattern for Big Striped Bass

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The gray-white frost of Eddie’s breath remained suspended in a kind of slow animation, projected against the inky backdrop of the November night, so much so that for a moment I thought he was vaping.
 
Even from 10 feet away, I heard the audible thump of his rod. Braid tore from the line roller as if he’d clipped the Bomber Long A to the back of a passing SUV. I had just slipped into the water and the tips of my fingers were quickly going numb. Suddenly, the screaming drag stopped, as if someone hit mute right as this scene approached a climactic point in the plot. The fish spit the hook and as Eddie’s neck swiveled in my direction, I noticed his eyes were as wide as boiled eggs, not because he had lost the first fish of the night, but because he realized that I wasn’t a liar.
 
“There are giants here.”
 
It was mid- November and for the first time in three winters, I asked a friend to join one of my secret missions. Eddie was my partner in the surf and had shared some of his most precious spots with me, so I thought it was only right to invite him. Plus, it can be lonely and boring out there in the cold when the fishing is slow, which is often. He showed moderate interest at first and admitted that he didn’t typically do much “holdover fishing.” I assured him that this would be different, and he agreed to meet me.

At the time, Eddie didn’t realize that I’d brought him to an area on that night for very specific reasons. Earlier that day, he asked “isn’t it going to be freezing tonight?” The answer was yes, and that was exactly why we needed to go, to catch what I have come to call “the cold-snap bite.”
The first real cold snap in November often sends our resident fish into hyper drive. After three years of experiencing this phenomenon, I believe the fish sense that winter is coming and aggressively feed in anticipation of the brutal months ahead. Shortly after this feeding event, which can last up to a week, the fish change behavior and act more like sluggish holdovers, sticking to bottom, slowing their metabolisms, and feeding infrequently. By early December, patterns I swear I had uncovered evaporate into the ether and it’s back to grinding for weeks at a time with very few—or sometimes no—bites.

This first cold snap, coupled with the thinning of natural bait, represents a unique opportunity for those of us who scour the backwaters for striped bass that pass on the migration and call our local estuaries home. When I am lucky enough to find the fish at the right stage of the tide and decipher what they want to eat, I often enjoy some of the best fishing of the season. Last year, I was happy to finally share this event with a friend who got to witness and partake alongside me. A part of me had almost forgotten how special it was, but seeing his disbelief after almost getting his shoulder dislocated on a giant fish in sub-32-degree temps was all it took to remind me how lucky I am to do what I love 12 months a year.

Shortly after Eddie lost his fish, I went tight. After a respectable fight, I eventually got the fish to roll on her side and we got the first glimpse. It was a stout 25-pound-class fish and Eddie couldn’t believe it. If I recall correctly, he simply yelled “Dude!” or “Bro!” Whatever he said was drenched in monotone bewilderment. What he meant was, “This makes no sense!” We had just spent the previous month chasing the last of the schoolies as the Fall migration waned in our local waters. On countless nights, we drove from Massachusetts to Rhode Island just to catch a few small fish, or often no fish. Suddenly, this secret winter wonderland revealed itself, as if I had just lifted a magic curtain that revealed a kind of Striped Bass Narnia.

I explained that even larger fish were in the area so we needed to keep casting as it was clear that they were fired up. I knew that we had the cold snap working to our advantage, and it was just a matter of time before we connected with something bigger. The last few winters had taught me that 35-pound fish were present in Massachusetts waters, some of which I have caught into the first week in January after going weeks without a bite. Other fish that I suspect were even larger had gotten away—bent hooks and demolished plugs were common occurrences at several of my favorite winter spots.

I took off the Bomber minnow plug I was using and clipped on a Super Snax weightless soft plastic. As I retrieved at a slow/medium speed, I got absolutely smoked by a bigger fish that immediately began to run. I fish with my drag set extremely tight, so Eddie knew it was a good fish on account of the lengthy runs it was taking. Even when I got the fish in front of me and grabbed my 60-pound leader, she didn’t stop fighting. Cold water exploded into the November night as her tail slapped the surface, propelling her in a circular pattern. When she finally settled, I got my grip on her bottom lip and held her up for Eddie to see. She was somewhere in the 28- to 30-pound range, chunky, and had a beautiful blue-white hue. These fish were not merely surviving in the frigid estuaries all year—they were healthy and thriving.

I landed a few more fish in the mid- to upper-20-pound range and Eddie was kind enough to snap a few photos for me, but I could tell he was determined to land one before the night ended. He had hooked up at least three more times since losing the first fish but hadn’t successfully landed one. Each of his hookups began with heart-pounding drag screams and ended in silence. Eddie is an experienced surfcaster, having landed fish up to 51 pounds, so this wasn’t a matter of skill. Looking back, I don’t think he was mentally prepared for striped bass mayhem to unfold in 30-degree weather. The first time you connect with a large fish in the context of a frigid landscape, it doesn’t make sense and can catch you off guard because it goes against so many of the widely accepted “rules” of fish behavior related to water temp, depth and “water quality.” That, coupled with frozen fingers and impaired dexterity, certainly makes for challenging fishing.

My last fish of the night was about 30 pounds, and after releasing her, I took a break. Eddie continued, and just as we were about to leave, he hooked into another fish. We both sighed in relief as he brought the fish to his feet. It ended up being the smallest fish of the night, yet still over 20 pounds.
A few nights later, he returned on his own and sent me a picture at 1 a.m. of him holding an absolute monster, bigger than any we had caught a few nights earlier. I laughed out loud when I got the text because he was wearing one of those Russian-style, furry winter hats in the photo, something I assume he procured specifically for his return to our winter wonderland. He went back for redemption, made the appropriate adjustments based on his previous struggles, and landed his first, but certainly not his last, winter giant. I wished I could have been there, but I felt a sense of relief that I had someone I could share these stories with. Secrecy is vital to preserving the areas that hold larger fish, but I had fished these spots alone for so long that I’d experienced the magic in a vacuum, so to speak. It was like winning the lottery and having to keep it a secret. Once I shared this phenomenon with Eddie, I felt renewed.
It is always a gamble in storytelling when you start with the ending and work your way back to the beginning, but it’s worth explaining what led to my cold snap discovery.

As I waded into the trenches of my early 40s, I started getting small glimpses of ways in which my age and perspective has the potential to bring new gifts to the table in exchange for more youthful gifts (like good eyesight) that have fallen to the wayside. For one, I am a little less encumbered by the warm cloak of thinking that I know everything. In fact, the deeper I descend into this surfcasting rabbit hole, the more I realize I still don’t know much at all. Or more accurately, I’ve come to terms with what is more likely true. What I know about striped bass only serves me on occasion, or for fleeting periods, until new truths, or better truths, unravel, bringing me on a non-linear fishing journey that may be perceived by others as progress.

This fluid, ever-evolving way of thinking about surfcasting and fish behavior has several advantages. First, it’s allowed me to contemplate what crazy, unlikely, and seemingly impossible things are achievable in this sport. Freeing myself of any rigid, absolute truths has afforded me the luxury of daydreaming about being able to catch large fish in local waters 12 months a year, something that the younger me thought was impossible. Refusing to tie myself to the anchor of past lessons allowed me to press through some daunting thresholds of “failure.” It wasn’t always easy, but I did my best to view my winter outings as exploratory instead of through the binary lens of “successful” or “unsuccessful.” On the other side of those thresholds, I experienced some of the most memorable nights of my life.

A few years back, feeling depressed that winter had arrived, I asked myself a simple question. What if I keep fishing? What if I don’t put the gear away and continue fishing all winter?

It is no secret that many estuaries attract “holdover” stripers that stay in local waters all season. I wrote an article on how to target “holdovers” in the 2022 On The Water Angler’s Almanac. The article was mostly a how-to guide on targeting small fish throughout the winter by scaling down tackle and using the right tactics. Shortly after that publication, I set my sights on a new goal. I wondered if larger fish, in the 20- to 30-pound range, live in Massachusetts all year long. After a few years of scouring the backwaters from Cape Cod to north of Boston, it turns out they do, and lots of them.

I now believe, through direct experience and from credible contacts in other states, that the resident population of large striped bass in every state from New Jersey to Maine is astronomically larger than anyone previously understood.

For readers looking for an easy path to catching them, I regret to say that there is nothing easy about winter fishing. I have, however, stumbled on a pattern that has offered me a handful of tides that I will never forget. As winter approaches, many surfcasters are willing to venture out on warmer nights, partly for their own comfort, but also because they believe warmer weather leads to more active fish. I also believed this for years until many frozen nights revealed the magical effects of the Cold Snap on fish behavior. I was hesitant to refer to it as a pattern after the second year, but now, as I approach the fourth consecutive year of testing this pattern, I am comfortable that it holds true. Of course, I am well aware that what I know about striped bass will continue to evolve, transform, dissolve, or otherwise surprise me, over and over, until the very end.

Source: https://onthewater.com/follow-the-cold-snap-pattern-for-big-striped-bass

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