The sound of waves crashing on Maine’s craggy, boulder-strewn coastline grew as the outgoing tide pulled my kayak toward the mouth of the tributary we had been drifting along since sunrise. I continued to work my bone-colored topwater plug along the banks of the marsh—a tedious, yet relaxing process occasionally interrupted by the splash of a schoolie striper exploding on the surface in an attempt at an easy meal. Relaxation turned to attentiveness as I found myself rising and falling between 2- and 3-foot swells, now casting into breaking waves on granite shelves that abruptly dropped into Casco Bay, providing a sanctuary for migrating stripers settling into their summer homes. It was mid-June, and I hadn’t caught a striper off the coast of Maine yet, let alone in a kayak. But when Matt Burkett asked me to go out kayak fishing for stripers—the fish I had grown up fishing for with my dad and brother in South Jersey—it sounded like a bucket-list opportunity.
“The accessibility you get from using a kayak is incredible,” said Burkett. “The Maine coast is so rocky, but it’s easy to paddle or pedal around in a kayak without having to slip and jump over boulders. And, watching the sunrise from the ocean, looking back at the shore, is epic.”
Until that point, striper fishing to me meant sitting in an anchored boat in the Delaware Bay, waiting for hours to hear the clicking of an unwinding conventional reel as a striper scooped up one of our chunks of bunker—or “pogies,” as I’ve learned they’re called in New England—from the bottom. “Any minute now,” we’d say repeatedly when the bite didn’t come, for no reason other than to convince ourselves our efforts weren’t futile.
Fishing from a kayak in Maine was the opposite experience. We were constantly moving, even if only 20 feet in any direction, managing our boats just beyond breaking waves, continuously switching lures and changing tactics. It was physically and mentally engaging. When I came tight to my first larger fish, feeling its thumping tail reverberate through the hull of my boat, I was sold.
“The advantage of using a kayak over surfcasting is that these fish are constantly on the move,” said Mike Baker, owner of Kayak Fish New England and a 15-year kayak striper-fishing veteran. “You can be fishing a pocket of beach, but the fish might be 40 feet out of your range. With a kayak, you can move around and find these fish, and when they move, you can stay on top of them.”
He continued, explaining that kayak fishing also has benefits over bigger boats. Not only can the fishing be more engaging, but you’re also able to get closer to breaking waves, gaining access to shallow water and areas between boulders, where larger boats can’t reach.
“I don’t even really fish for stripers out of my big boat anymore,” he noted.
Of course, when getting into kayak fishing, gear is a huge consideration. After my initial trip and before purchasing my first kayak, my brother and I decided we’d have the same experience using an old, retired canoe I purchased for $50 from a canoe-rental outfitter. It took only two trips before we had our first near-miss—to this day, I have no idea how we managed to prevent the boat from flipping, dumping us and our gear into the white water that churned against Maine’s granite ledges.
While you don’t need to spend a fortune for the latest and greatest gear (one friend fished out of a $300 kayak from Dick’s Sporting Goods for years and caught more fish than my brother and I combined), you must be hands-free and mobile. Unlike striper destinations further south, much of the fishing takes place in areas with boulders lurking just below the surface and in breaks up against rocky ledges.
A sit-on-top kayak, like the ones made by Hobie and Old Town, is ideal due to its stability and seat position high above the waterline. When fishing breaking waves, it’s important to be mobile, since the current (or a large fish) can pull you into the rocks on a dime. A pedal kayak that allows you to move forward and backward while your hands are occupied with fishing gear is the perfect tool for the job, although it can be pricey. Those who are crafty can also mount a trolling motor to their kayak, which isn’t completely hands-free, but is much easier to manage than a paddle.
While I don’t have any electronics on my boat aside from a trolling motor, a good fishfinder with the side-scan feature can be helpful.
Baker explained that one of the most effective ways to use his side-scanning sonar is to move in a zigzag pattern along beaches so he can see what’s going on in all directions rather than only up and down or toward and away from the coastline. And especially in Maine, where hidden boulders rising up from the bottom are commonplace, side scan can help you avoid being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Stripers are relatively predictable fish. They follow the same migratory patterns, showing up in the same places at almost the same time, year after year. They tend to hold next to structures, like rocks and ledges, and feed in shallow water.
In Maine, bass frequently chase baitfish toward shore, cornering mackerel, pollock, and pogies against the granite ledges. While fish can be caught in deeper water, the most effective way to hook up is to cast your bait or lure directly into the white water, as close to land as possible. Casting a live, weightless mackerel into the break can be extremely productive, but adding a float a few feet above your bait may minimize getting caught in the rocks.
Of course, this means positioning your boat sometimes dangerously close to the break, so it’s important to constantly be aware of your surroundings and where you’re positioned with respect to breaking waves. It’s very easy to lose track and get pulled into the break, especially when fighting a fish or looking down to tie on a new lure. It doesn’t take much before you may find your boat upside down with all of your expensive gear never to be seen again.
When fishing at night, working the beaches with eels (plastic or live) can also be effective.
Unlike a bigger boat, which is more stationary in moving water, a kayak is affected more significantly by currents and adjustments made by the fisherman. When approaching a spot, be careful when casting directly in front of you since the forward motion will continue long after you stop pedaling or motoring.
According to Baker, many of his clients struggle with wind knots that occur from letting the line go slack during casts in the direction of motion. Lures don’t tend to have much action when you’re only reeling up the slack as you drift toward them.
With nearly 3,500 miles of coastline, including all of its inlets and bays, Maine is an uninhibited playground for kayak fishermen on the hunt for stripers.
Generally speaking, rivers, creeks, and marshes in the spring and fall can be productive, but it’s important to make a plan that considers the tide. Working against it to get back to your car at the end of the day is not only a hassle; at times, it can be impossible.
As the fish settle in for the summer, targeting rocky areas of the coast near drops into deeper water or setting your sights on sand beaches at night will increase your chances of success.
It’s increasingly common to find fishermen cruising the internet, searching for the “perfect” spot to fish. But this misses the fact that much of the ecosystem along the coast of Maine is the same, and as long as there are structure and bait, you’ll find success.
“A lot of choosing where to go is trial and error,” Baker said. “And, honestly, I think that’s kind of the fun part of it—finding your own spots.”
If there is one thing to be learned from 12-hour biteless days in the Delaware Bay, it’s that if what you’re doing isn’t working, do something else.
Kayaks, which are more agile than larger boats and can reach places that those boats and surfcasters can’t reach, are perfect for mobility. Rather than targeting a specific boulder, hole, or point for hours at a time, keep moving, working along the coast until you find fish. If you spend 20 minutes casting at one spot without a bite, it’s likely time to move on, even if it’s only 20 feet to one side or the other.
Northeast anglers know all too well that striped bass are one of the most prized species to target. As we drifted back towards our car, the incoming tide whisked us past the occasional pops and splashes of schoolie stripers feeding on baitfish near the surface. The golden and orange light from the setting sun filtered through the grasslands, providing the perfect end to a perfect day. The sport of chasing striped bass, and, more specifically, kayak fishing for stripers, had evolved overnight for me, and I knew the 12-hour, stagnant, fishless days in the Delaware Bay were a thing of the past.
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WATCH: Kayak Fishing for Stripers in Maine | Kayak Fishing the Coast – Ep. 1
