i was just reading the study about striped bass feeding habits in mass..
it concludes that they rarely eat mackerel.. from hingham upwards had the highest concentration of mackerel in stomachs with a frequency of occurrence at 1.5 percent. mean while that same number for bunker was 21.2

that's quite a large difference. of course the macks have been far and few between since june (or atleast from i see and hear) compared to the bunkers being every where.

another interesting note is 55% of the diet was crustaceans. i didn't think it was that big a part of the diet.

the numbers compared to those above are 19.7 for rock crabs and 19.3 for sand shrimp. and 11 for the green crab. they also feed more heavily on lobsters than they do on mackerel at 8.9.

nothing else came close to those numbers.. so mackerel are not a big food for stripers.. they seem to be a prey of opportunity. where as they seem actively hunt down bunker.

another interesting thing.. during june and july bunker had next to nothing to do with food for bass. percentage wise. the diet was mostly crustacean.
which would explain why my buddy and i had tons of fish on clams and people pluggin got skunked more often.
the once august hits that it reverses back to a fish diet. mostly bunker. to the point where nothing else even matters.

the most interesting thing i saw was.. the larger fishes' diet was dominated by lobsters all season and the schoolies fed more on bunker.

of course this is from hingham upwards. i haven bothered trying to make sense of the capes report. which isn't much different.

it was a very interesting read if you can make sense of it. it basically concludes that the larger the bass the less fish they eat.

with that said.. i will be changing my tactics up immediately. now where can i get my hands on those hogy lobsters? i need them ASAP!

interesting, those results seam right in line with what I've observed in the waters between boston and southern main.

just my opinion (and this is based on surf conditions, don't know much about boats), but I wouldn't get too focused on mimicking lobster or crabs. I've cleaned a lot of fish caught on bombers, needles, etc. that were full of lobster and crabs. lobster are so prevalent in big fish diets because they are one of the most available large baits (and one that does not require a lot of chasing) north of boston. they also don't require bass to leave the comfort of deep water to find. Macks are seasonal and fairly quick (tough to catch). I have only seen adult bunker a few times near shore up this way. I would concentrate on live (eels) or large slow moving offerings that work down along the bottom (needles and big, diving metal lips) and deep, rocky water if you want to target big fish.

i am in no way saying that bunker or mackeral won't work, in fact if you can get live or fresh ones I'd put my money on those taking big bass even if macks and bunker are not around.

Big fish want big meals. If they are scrounging shellfish and a big slow injured mackerel comes along they'll go for it............BOOM. Matching the hatch is not always the same as giving fish what they want.

oh the bunker are around... i've seen more schools of bunker in the past two weeks then i see cars.. fresh bunker ain't working out for me. neither are any plugs it throw out at them. i'm not gonna bother with mimicking crabs.. but lobster definitely worth a shot here. we have hooked a few of them while chunking.

my main shock is how much of the diet they make up. i didn't realize they made 50% of a large fishes diet. i thought they were more of a rare treat for them. and how little of the diet mackerels made up. i would have figured the ratios would be more like 2 or 3 bunker to every 1 mack not 7/1.

the way things are here the waters are filled with lobsters and bunker. i would assume the big guys would prefer a lobster over chasing the bunker any day. if anything. it's definitely worth a shot.

Big fish want big meals. If they are scrounging shellfish and a big slow injured mackerel comes along they'll go for it............BOOM. Matching the hatch is not always the same as giving fish what they want.

they seem to want crustaceans.. :huh:

Striped Bass are opportunistic feeders and do hang around the bottom alot.

Crabs and lobsters are easy targets.

indeed. i just didnt think that they could sustain themselves on crustaceans on such a high percentage of crustaceans. i thought they required the hardier fish.

i guess i forgot how big some crustaceans can be.

if ya go look at the report on the mass website.. you can see they eat hundreds of different things. but for the of those in 80% of the cases the numbers are below 1 compared to the numbers above. so those are obviously the favorites. so small thats it seems almost pointless to fish those imitations.

stuff we consider baitfish that are even more frequent in these waters make up almost nothing of their diets. i always thought they just fed heavily on anything in the area. seems they have preferences. with a major difference in the numbers. reading the charts of what they feed on was almost overwhelming. there are so many options available. but you start realizing there is a lot <.01 and very very few things over 1. only the above popped out. everything else they at in such small numbers, i wouldnt even call em a food source. more like a snack that swam into their mouths for them.

they have it set up for three areas the north shore (from plymouth area upward) the cape and nantucket. it's worth a look and head ache trying to decipher it.

also.. boat guys.. keep using bunkers. cause once you get into open water the big ones flip again and feed more heavily on fish.

after reading all this stuff i cant wait till next year. heck the rest of this year. i have some ideas brewing. thinking i'm gonna go grab some crayfish rubbers and douse them in crab scent.. see what happens. if that works.. i'm definitely finding those big ole hogy lobsters and never lookin back.

they seem to want crustaceans.. :huh:

Is it a case of wanting them or settling for what they can get? I suspect the latter. That said, lobster tails were the prefered bait and chum at the old bass clubs around the turn of the century, and accounted for some very impressive daytime fish (60+ lbs) in the middle of the summer and within spitting distance of shore.

Perhaps a big black bucktail tipped with a black and orange pork rind would be an economical way to test the crustacean diet theory.

I've also read somewhere that bass hang out below lobster boats and snarf down all the shorts that the lobstermen toss after pulling their pots. A lobster floating down through the water column certainly falls within the "easy meal" category.

Is it a case of wanting them or settling for what they can get? I suspect the latter.

i dont know about that. because the diet switches in open water. you would think it would be harder for a fish to catch bunker in open water as opposed to trapping them inland pockets. but the inland food of choice is crabs and lobsters..

not saying they wont mow down injured fish.. but crabs and the like seem to be the way to go.


and then i find this video.. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3--fC4MGZQ
it's stripers eating french fries...

it's worth a look and head ache trying to decipher it.

Want it in laymans terms?
"Striped Bass will eat anything."

Done.

exactly! don't over think it, they eat what's available.

they eat what's available, and in spring in Boston Harbor, that's mackerel :hee:

I've also read somewhere that bass hang out below lobster boats and snarf down all the shorts that the lobstermen toss after pulling their pots. A lobster floating down through the water column certainly falls within the "easy meal" category.

That's a fact and it's led me to the assumption that they are opportunist feeders and the easy meal is the one they are most likely to hit on first. It seems to me they favor whatever they can eat the most of in a short period of time. In most cases one bait or another is most abundant at the time and thats what they eat.