Artificial Intelligence

I love everything about American eels. They are arguably the most effective and versatile bait when targeting striped bass. Many a book chapter, magazine article, and blog post have been written about their ability to entice stripers into gulping them down like candy. An eel was responsible for my largest bass ever landed and I’m sure the same can be said by countless anglers up and down the Striper Coast. 

For a long time now, lure makers have been trying to, with varying levels of success, duplicate the American eel’s shape, suppleness, and action. I have been fishing eels in nearly every fashion possible for as long as I can remember and don’t plan on giving them up entirely anytime soon. All that said, they are expensive, can be a pain to deal with, and are sadly becoming scarcer as the years tick by.  

Companies like Lunker City, Hogy, RonZ, Al Gag’s, Berkley were some of the OGs of my early days of fishing eel imitations, and they still make great baits today. However, it’s been intriguing to witness the arms race of long, slender soft-plastics come to market over the last 20 years. By names like Got Stryper, Game On!, Fish Snax Lures, JoeBaggs, Zinger Baits, and Gravity Tackle to name a few. There are limitless combinations of size, color, and rigging options available to today’s angler for nearly any situation they could encounter. So much so the choices can be overwhelming.

Over time, I have been building up my arsenal of soft-plastics and my confidence in using them. I am starting to find more consistency in my success and part of that can be attributed to selecting the right bait and rigging style to match the spot and its conditions on a given outing. Like in every kind of fishing that I do, it has been a fun, never ending journey of learning. The farther down this rabbit hole I go, the more I realize how much there is still to learn, explore, and experiment.

We’re on a loop. Enjoy the ride.

The author with a healthy striped bass that fell for a 13.5" GT eel rigged on a 1/2 oz. jig head. 

Triathlon Bass

While there was no swimming or running involved, this lazy man’s triathlon did have its share of driving, cycling, and walking. An end-of-summer fishing adventure with a good amount of time and energy expended to reach a chosen spot; effort that would pay off in spades just a few casts in.  

Wearing wetsuits and standing in water 50-yards from shore on a dark night, it was challenging not to think about the plethora of brown sharks that chomped striped bass catches all over Long Island Sound this summer. Jim, the trip planner and my host for the night, started with a live eel. I opted for a lure that punched through the light breeze to reach the dying current, which was going from right to left around a rocky point with an ebb tide.

This lure was an Xplorer, the brainchild of a talented angler and plug builder named John Stirpe. Made of resin with a portion of its core being urethane foam, it is a unique and versatile floating swimmer that digs on a fast or slow retrieve, flashing a super realistic paintjob. It was gifted to me by my pal Eddie, a fellow fishing and artifact junkie from Massachusetts. He has fooled a number of plus-size striped bass over the past few seasons on Xplorers. Knowing I had coveted one for some time, Eddie generously mailed me a plug from his personal stash with the understanding that I would fish it hard.

Our first casts came right after full darkness set in. I was aiming to about 1:30 on a clock face. On my second cast, my lure had just splashed down and something whacked it, even before I had a chance to put my braid on the line roller. A good omen no doubt and I hollered to Jim to give him a heads up. While retrieving the very next cast, a fish slammed the Xplorer and immediately thrashed around on the surface. It then made a bee line right at me and I reeled furiously to stay in contact. When the bass realized it was hooked, she did an about face and flexed her muscles, peeling an impressive amount of line in the process.

This was the biggest test yet for my 'Montauk Eel Rod,' a Lamiglas blank cut and wrapped in 2015 by a friend and expert rod builder, Billy DiLizio. A rod soft enough to throw and feel lighter offerings, yet with enough balls to put the screws to big striped bass, which is exactly what I was doing in this moment for fear of having it bitten in half by the taxman. A strong fish, but beaten pretty quickly and still green when my Boga Grip clasped its lower lip.

In the faint beam of my headlamp, the bass did its best planking impression just under the surface, allowing me to snap a half decent photo with the Xplorer still in its jaw. Before letting her go, I lifted the fish quickly out of the water and watched the numbers on the scale drop to a hair below the 36 mark. This was a notable catch for me in a few ways. It was the largest striped bass I had caught in years, the largest ever landed on that particular rod, and my largest ever using an artificial lure. Stoked doesn’t begin to describe it. Do I wish I had gotten a better photo? Yes, but there was no good way to document it without bringing the fish to shore and risking its health and possibly missing out catching other fish. I took solace in how strong she bolted away for deeper water.

The fish were there as soon as we arrived, and likely before that, though they seemed to vacate the boulder field soon after, as the moving water grinded to a halt. Jim ended up losing what felt and sounded like another big bass on an eel and I had one more hit on the swimmer. That was it, though we kept trying for a while before the long walk, pedal, and drive back. My partner was on vacation and could have kept fishing for another 12 hours, but I had to be presentable at work the next morning. Still, I wouldn’t have changed anything. I floated on air the whole way home and for some time after. 

That was a memorable fish and experience, and I am grateful for the many cool pieces that came together to make it possible—from Jim organizing the trip, to Billy wrapping the rod, to John building the plug, to Eddie mailing it to my door. One of the greatest things about fishing is, you just never know what is going to happen on any given outing.