Week 16 of the 2026 Striper Cup is in the books! Five anglers from Massachusetts and Maine took home gear this week, including a special SIMRAD winner, as a New Moon lit up the striper bite across New England.
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Shore — Blake Boissoneault
Saco, ME
Wins the YETI Cayo 25L Backpack
Boat — Conor Driscoll
Easthampton, MA
Wins the YETI Hopper Flip 18 Soft Cooler
Kayak — Craig Desmarais
Woburn, MA
Wins the PENN Fathom LP 500
Youth — Dylan Ray
Scituate, MA
Wins the PENN Battle IV 4000 Spinning Combo
SIMRAD Special — Nyder Menezes
Edgartown, MA
Wins the SIMRAD NSX 3009 Chartplotter & Fish Finder
Costa Photo Contest — TBD
Costa Photo Contest winner coming soon.
See the full 2026 prize lineup →
Striped Bass Migration Report: A New Moon Kicks Off the Fall Feeling
The New Moon tides lit a fire under the striper bite this week, and the whole coast is starting to feel a lot like fall. Big bass are pummeling pogy schools in Massachusetts, Maine is seeing squid numbers not seen in years, and bonito are widespread from the Cape to Rhode Island. The one exception is the Chesapeake, where stripers are off-limits for the rest of the month. Here’s where they’re biting.
Cape Cod & Massachusetts
The New Moon lived up to the hype, and the Massachusetts striper bite jumped this week. Big bass up to 50 inches have been pummeling pogy schools around the Boston Harbor islands, from Long Island and Georges to Gallops and Lovells, with live-lined pogies in the shadows of the Fore River Bridge accounting for slot and larger fish. Cooler water and bigger tides have improved the inshore game off Green Harbor, Humarock, and The Glades, and out on the Cape the story is bonito, which have spread everywhere from Buzzards Bay to Monomoy and are chewing best on silversides and peanut bunker.
New Hampshire & Maine
Up north it’s a full-on fall preview. Striped bass are stacking up along the beaches with big fish keyed on pogies and sand eels, and Old Orchard, Moody, Ogunquit, and Fortunes Rocks are all earning high marks. When the bass are on pogies, big profiles like glide baits, spooks, and flutter spoons get bit, but when they switch to sand eels you’ll want slim offerings like Slug-Gos, Albie Snax, and epoxy jigs. Maine has squid numbers not seen in years, and anglers up north have been watching aerial footage of stripers wound into bait balls.
Rhode Island
Rhode Island is easing into hardtail season. The striped bass fishing remains very strong at Block Island, where fish can be caught throughout the day, and there are still plenty of big bass out front both locally and around the island. The topwater bite is picking up during low-light windows, bonito numbers keep climbing, and bluefish are mixed in gorging on the huge amount of bait. Just watch the warm water and shorten your fights on the bigger fish.
Connecticut
Connecticut’s bass bite is holding strong in the cooler water of the eastern Long Island Sound, where the reefs continue to fish best. Eels and topwater plugs during low-light windows are the go-to, with needlefish plugs and live eels producing on the night shift and deeper presentations working through the day. Bonito have pushed into the eastern Sound, though be ready to share your bass with the brown sharks east of the Connecticut River.
New Jersey
New Jersey is thick with bait, which is setting the table for the fall run. There are loads of peanut bunker from the Point Pleasant Canal out to the beaches, and bass are hitting live peanuts in the canal at night. There are still stripers around for those who work for them, including a jumbo summer bass landed near the Shrewsbury Rocks this week, while bonito and Spanish mackerel on epoxy lures round out the daytime action.
Chesapeake Bay
The Chesapeake striped bass fishery is closed for the entire month of August, so there’s no targeting bass in the bay right now, even catch and release, to protect the fish through the hottest stretch of summer. Anglers are staying busy with an excellent bluefish bite, Spanish mackerel, and blue catfish in the tidal rivers. The bay reopens to stripers on September 1, when the fall fishing starts to turn on.
The bait is everywhere and the first fall-run signs are here. Find the bait, fish the low-light windows, and you’re in the game.
For the full picture, check the Striper Migration Map and OTW’s weekly 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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