I've caught striped bass a hundred different ways — but this one felt brand new.
After co-hosting our Zoominar with local flats guide Chris Kokorda on shallow water striper fishing, I'd been carrying a crab fly in my box for weeks, waiting for the right moment. That moment arrived on a foggy Monday morning in late May, which you may remember reading about here. On that day I encountered a school of stripers cruising over a shallow sandbar I'd been walking past for years.
In this video you'll get to see the crab fly setup I used — 9-weight fly rod, sinking line, Rio tapered leader — and the retrieve that got the bite: rod tip pointed down into the water, medium-speed strips, letting the fly hop along the bottom. The take came out of nowhere, and the fight that followed on that skinny water flat is something I won't forget for a while.
Whether you're a fly fisherman or a conventional angler curious about flats fishing for stripers, this one's worth a watch. The drone footage of the school alone is something special!
📍Access the beach I was fishing in this video > view Google map of beach
🎣 Read the full report + more drone footage: https://myfishingcapecod.com/crab-fly-stripers/