Trolling Eels for Striped Bass – On The Water

If you fish for stripers, especially in New Jersey, you know the name Chuck Many. If you don’t see him on the water, you may hear “woo-hoo!” emanating from his boat, Tyman. The man catches more 35- to 50-pound bass in Jersey waters than any other angler around … bar none.

Knowing Tyman’s successes, I set out to film an episode of Saltwater Underground, going deep to find out what Chuck’s magic was all about. Navigating a 20-knot west wind and 3- to 4-foot seas off the northern Jersey coast, we set out the eel lines. Before I could put the first rod in the gunnel, line started screaming off its reel, the spool engaged, and a 44-pound bass was boatside, tagged, and sent back into the water. Sixteen more stripers followed suit, all between 25 to 45 pounds.

So, how does this dude consistently find and catch big bass?

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BIG-TIME NUMBERS

Any bass that Chuck thinks is over 40 pounds is weighed on an IGFA-certified Boga Grip that he sends out to get calibrated every year and on a Whisker Seeker digital scale to confirm the weight.

“Last October was the best big bass fishing I’ve ever seen. During that month alone, I released 441 stripers over the 40-pound mark and 6 over the 50-pound mark.” Those aren’t typos. “In a three-day stretch in that month, we released 228 bass over 35 pounds. I’ve never seen anything like it,” Chuck told me with a sense of disbelief even when he was reciting those numbers.

However, Chuck also said, with a tinge of incredulity, that he has yet to crack the hallowed 60-pound mark. “I’ve had fish 59.47 and 59.37 pounds, but not 60 yet. I just don’t know why. To me, that 60-pound mark is a quantum leap in striper growth, but they just don’t seem to elevate past 60. Sometimes, I feel unlucky that I can’t break it.”

trolling eels for striped bass — Chuck Many with a hefty striper. His unique trolling technique allows him to catch quality fish throughout the entire fishing season.

Unlucky, he says, but those kind of numbers buckle the knees of any striper hound. There’s got to be some inside magic to it all, and Chuck offers this advice. “I know it sounds crazy, but when targeting big bass, you just have to believe. By that, I mean this: First, I target structure edges that drop from 25 to 50 feet because I know bass are usually feeding on that line. If I run over one solitary red splotch mark at 20 feet, I immediately send out the lines. Those big fish are suspending in the water, so one mark means more are around. It’s hard to stop on only one mark, but that’s where belief comes into play. Reliance on my logbooks tells me I may not mark a bunch, but the one mark will mean more are hanging around.” Chuck works that structure line, believing it’s the superhighway migratory fish are lining up on. He will consistently drift or drag his eel baits along it.

It can be in the spring, during the heat of the summer, or well into the fall run, though Chuck can find cow bass in Jersey waters no matter what history dictates, bucking all known facts and beliefs about time of year or conditions. “Spring and fall are obviously the better times to find the migratory fish, but on July 4 this year when you expect them to be gone, I went out and didn’t mark anything, but still put the baits out and found a couple of 40-pound fish. I don’t like to fish much after June during the summer because I believe the change in water temperature from the bottom to the top significantly affects the survivability of those big fish.”

Setting the Eel Spread

Chuck’s technique involves using planer boards to set an eel spread. The planer-board technique started down in the Chesapeake Bay off Virginia where Chuck winters over to target big bass, and he brought that tactic up to Jersey.

His rig consists of an 8/0 inline Gamakatsu circle hook, 3 to 4 feet of 30-pound fluorocarbon leader, a 150-pound barrel swivel, then a bead onto the running line, which is always 30-pound hi-vis monofilament, not braid. (Braided line trips the planer board and causes much unneeded frustration.) A Trophy Stalker planer board is then affixed. Hi-vis line allows the angler to maintain and monitor the spread and keep it from crossing up. Chuck goes big, setting out 12 rods, 3 weightless and 9 with pinch-on rubber-core sinkers of ¼, ½, or 1 ounce. Rods include 6½-foot Shimano Northeast Terramar medium to heavy conventional rods matched with Shimano Trinidad 20A or 30A reels. Eels are hooked under the bottom jaw and out the top jaw.

(Above: Chuck Many uses this detailed rig when trolling eels for striped bass.)

“Set the furthest-back lines out first. Pull out the line on like you’re chunking, doling it out 10 to 30 feet back, then set the line in the planer,” says Many. “The floating planer pulls to the side, so the furthest-back lines are furthest out to the side with the resistance. You can stack the rods accordingly in one big V-shaped spread. When the fish hits, the planer trips, comes loose, slides down the line and catches the bead.”

Chuck either slow-trolls or drifts, depending on the conditions. “When the winds are pushing 10 to 12 knots or more, I prefer to drift the eels and let the wind do the work. When trolling, I run at 1 to 1½ knots so the furthest lines will be planed out 75 to 100 yards to the side of the boat,” he adds.

A Trip to Remember

On our day filming the Saltwater Underground episode, I didn’t know what to expect because of the challenging rough conditions. As we were working 65-foot depths, eels were sent back, ranging from on the surface down to about 25 feet, and I was skeptical that the bass would come up from such deep water to hit them. Of course, I was wrong. While we consistently got hit, Chuck affixed an inline underwater camera in front of the eels to see how the bass fed, and we could see the bass come from below and follow the eel, striking a few times before engulfing it.

As a parting word of advice, Chuck gave this nugget: “My best tool is my logbook. There may be no reports of bass and you think they are gone, but when I line my logbook up with my trips, it always comes together, no matter if I am reading the fish or not. Keep the logbook and, most importantly, log the trips when you don’t catch any fish and note the conditions. That can be of major importance to decide when and where to go.” Chuck Tyman not catching any fish? That’s one number I have trouble believing.

» Watch the Saltwater Underground episode where Chuck showcases this tactic