Ryan Franklin

As much as I love the summer, I always get excited for Fall for several reasons.

For example, you get to enjoy fun summer activities without the droves of tourist.

Second, football starts up again; go Patriots! And saving the best for last, the fall striper run!

Over the past few years I have been most fortunate to be invited on several striper tagging expeditions by my good friend, Captain Art Brosan.

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Our expeditions are aboard the Capt’n & Tonaire, a thirty-five foot JC custom built boat.

Captain Art also operates Cape Cod Charter Fishing out of Saquaktucket Harbor, Harwich MA.

The Goal: Tag As Many Stripers As Possible

The striper expedition began at six o’clock sharp on a warm September morning before all this NE wind rolled through the region. Art steamed the Capt’n & Tonaire to the east, with a crew of two marine biologists, a few lucky patrons, including myself.

The only agenda of the day was to catch as many bass as possible. After each fish came over the side, it would be measured, tagged, and a scale sample would be collected.

Here’s an interesting fact: the rings on a striper’s scale will give you a rough estimate of its' age. The rings are not visible to the naked eye, but are easily seen with a microscope.

I know a few readers may wonder why this information is necessary. One answer is that the length and age help determine striper populations, and the tag will give data about stripers' migratory patterns.

Finding The Vertical Jig Bite

Once we arrived at our desired fishing area, the hunt was on. We were vertical jigging so we began cruising through different water depths searching for a large school of bass.

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