Striped bass fishing tips: best time to fish for stripers, tides and moon

Striped bass fishing tips for the Atlantic coast and inland lakes: the best time to fish for striped bass by season, tide, moon and hour, the spring and fall runs, baits and lures.

Striped bass are the signature gamefish of the Northeast coast: they run up rivers in spring, roam beaches and rips in summer and blitz the surf in fall. They also thrive in big southern reservoirs. Timing is everything with stripers: the right season, tide and light can turn a dead night into the trip of a lifetime.

Best time of year for striped bass

Season	Where	What happens
Spring (April–June)	Chesapeake Bay, Hudson River, Delaware River	The spawning run: big fish move up rivers, then head north
Late spring–summer	New Jersey, Long Island, Rhode Island, Cape Cod	Stripers follow bait to the beaches, rips and estuaries
Fall (September–December)	From Maine south to Montauk, New Jersey, the Outer Banks	The fall run: stripers migrate south feeding hard on bunker, mullet and sand eels
Winter	Chesapeake, Virginia and NC waters, warm-water discharges	Fish hold in deeper, warmer water

The fall run is the highlight for most coastal anglers: Montauk blitzes in October, the New Jersey beaches in November, and fish pushing south toward Virginia and the Carolinas by December.

Best time of day

Night: the most consistent time for big stripers, especially in summer and on clear water.
Dawn and dusk: blitzes and topwater bites often happen in low light.
Daytime: good on overcast days, in dirty water, or when birds and bait are working.

Tides: moving water catches stripers

Stripers use current to ambush bait. The best fishing is usually on a moving tide, and each spot has its "tide": a rip that fires on the outgoing, a beach trough that fishes best on the last of the incoming, an inlet that turns on at the change.

New and full moons make stronger tides and stronger rips, often the best fishing.
Outgoing tides at inlets and river mouths flush bait out: classic striper spots.
Keep a log of which tide works at your spots; it's the most valuable thing a striper angler owns.

More in tides and solunar for saltwater fishing.

Stripers and the moon

Many surfcasters prefer dark nights around the new moon, when stripers feel safer close to shore and darker lures stand out against the sky. Others love full moon tides for their extra current. Both are right: the new and full moon periods bring the biggest tides, and the solunar windows inside them help narrow down the hours. The 2027 dates, including the summer "super new moons" with huge tides, are in our full moon calendar 2027.

Inland striped bass

Landlocked stripers thrive in big reservoirs: Lake Texoma (TX/OK), Lake Lanier (GA), Lake Mead (NV/AZ), Lake Cumberland (KY), Santee Cooper (SC) and many more. They follow schools of shad.

Spring: stripers run up tributaries.
Summer: deep, cool water; downlines with live bait, trolling, early-morning topwater.
Fall and winter: fish follow shad shallow; watch for birds and surface boils.

Striped bass fishing tips: baits and lures

Live bait: bunker (menhaden), eels at night, herring in spring, live spot down south.
Chunk bait: fresh bunker chunks on the bottom, especially in spring and fall.
Plugs: swimmers like needlefish and metal-lipped swimmers at night, poppers and pencils at dawn.
Soft plastics and bucktails: paddle tails and bucktails with a trailer work everywhere.
Circle hooks with bait, required in many states and better for releasing fish.
Match the bait: small and slim during a sand eel bite, big and wide in a bunker blitz.

Regulations and conservation

Atlantic striped bass are managed with a slot limit that changes over time, plus seasonal closures in some states and rivers. Check your state's current rules before you keep a fish, and release big breeders with care: hold them in the water until they swim off.

Plan with Solunar

The Solunar app shows each day's major and minor windows, moonrise, moonset, sunrise and sunset on a 24-hour dial with a 1–4 star day rating, offline from your exact beach or ramp. Pair it with your tide chart: when the rip turns on during a solunar window at dusk, be there.