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Friday, May 16, the first segment of the 2025 striped bass season began. DNR’s striped bass regulation map shows what areas are open, are catch & release only, or closed to striped bass fishing throughout the year.

Over-slot stripers are being caught on the ocean-side beaches of Maryland as big Chesapeake stripers move north.

Southern New Jersey has seen an influx of 40-inch-plus stripers, with better fish being caught on clams off the beaches. In the Northern half of the state, trophy-class stripers are off the beaches being caught by boaters trolling and fishing live eels and spoons.

Bass in the 40-pound class have arrived and are shadowing bunker off the south shore.  Big stripers are also filling into western Long Island Sound. And stripers to 40 inches are being landed all the way out to Montauk.

Rhode Island fishing remains excellent in Narragansett Bay, with some 40-pounders in the mix along with the abundant 30-inchers and occasional 40-inchers on bunker and herring. Larger stripers are moving into the Western Sound in good numbers and being caught in western Connecticut.

Big numbers of fish, mostly from 26 to 36 inches, are moving through Buzzards Bay feeding on small sea herring and 40-inchers are starting to show up around menhaden pods. Those fish continue to push through the Cape Cod Canal and fill in Cape Cod Bay and the South Shore. Thirty-inch class fish have been reported in Boston Harbor and north to Plum Island, as schoolies continue to stretch north into southern Maine.