Week 11 of the 2026 Striper Cup is in the books! With winners spread from Massachusetts to New Jersey and Rhode Island in between, this week’s board reflects a summer bite that’s firmly in full swing across the Northeast.
REGISTER FOR THE 2026 STRIPER CUP →
Shore — Scott St Jean
Foster, RI
Wins the YETI Cayo 25L All-Weather Backpack
Boat — Lily Novak
Framingham, MA
Wins the YETI Camino 35 Carryall Tote
Kayak — Donald Campbell
Magnolia, MA
Wins the PENN Fathom LP 500
Youth — Quinten Daley
Mendham, NJ
Wins the Bubba Smart Fish Scale
Costa Photo Contest — Matt Seymour
Middleboro, MA
Wins a pair of Costa Sunglasses
See the full 2026 prize lineup →
Where the Bass Are Now: Summer Patterns in Full Swing
The migration is over, but the fishing is anything but. Summer patterns have set up from Montauk to Maine, with big bass sitting on deep reefs, hunting sand eels and mackerel in low-light windows, and rewarding the anglers who are willing to grind through the doldrums for shorter but higher-quality bite windows.
Rhode Island is producing some of the best big-fish action on the coast. Block Island’s summer giants have settled in, and boats fishing the rips and reefs off Newport, South County, and Block have been hoisting 45- to 48-inch fish alongside countless mid-30s to low-40s bass on eels, tube-and-worm, and topwater in the fog and low-light hours. Massachusetts is transitioning from spring to midsummer — the Cape Cod Canal, Monomoy, Provincetown, and the outer Cape’s backside are the focus areas as fish key in on sand eels and macs. Long Island is deep into summer mode, with Montauk giving up jaw-dropping deep-water bites in 40 to 80 feet of water on jigs and eels, including a recent 60-pounder on a bucktail. Connecticut’s deeper reefs are still producing a mix of 40-pound-plus fish and slot-class bass, with live bait now outfishing artificials as water temps climb. Coastal New Hampshire and Maine are riding a strong sand eel and mackerel bite from Great Bay through southern Maine’s beaches.
For the latest reports up and down the coast, check the weekly OTW Fishing Reports.
Not Registered Yet?
It’s not too late to get in. Every Striper Cup registration includes the Striper Box (Columbia PFG shirt, Rapala lure, OTW snapback, collectible pin, and YETI discounts), a shot at weekly prizes, and a Golden Ticket entry into the grand prize boat raffle at StriperFest.
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