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Week 10 of the 2026 Striper Cup is in the books! Five anglers from Connecticut, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island took home gear this week as summer fishing kicked into gear across the Northeast.
REGISTER FOR THE 2026 STRIPER CUP →
Shore — Gary Rubin
Long Branch, NJ
Wins the PENN Slammer 5500 / Carnage 10′ Combo
Boat — Andrew Kail
Westport, CT
Wins the PENN Fathom LP 500HS
Kayak — Cheri Parker
Warner, NH
Wins the PENN Fathom LP 500
Youth — Michael Ward
Pembroke, MA
Wins the Bubba Smart Fish Scale
Costa Photo Contest — Jim Walsh
Narragansett, RI
Wins a pair of Costa Sunglasses
See the full 2026 prize lineup →
Migration Update: The Bait Is Calling the Shots
The spring run has given way to the summer pattern, and right now Cape Cod Bay is holding what might be the biggest body of bass in Massachusetts. Squid have been packed into the bay for a month, and at Race Point they are stacked up alongside sand eels and mackerel with a huge aggregate of stripers on the feed. Anglers on the outer Cape are getting lights-out topwater action early and late, and night-shift surfcasters on the bayside beaches are putting fish from 30 inches to 30 pounds on the sand. Vineyard Sound’s rips are pushing 70 degrees and the bass there have turned picky, eating epoxy jigs and small soft plastics over big poppers, while first-light surface feeds pop along South Shore beaches from Duxbury to Scituate and Salem Sound holds steady fish on small bait.
The story runs the whole coast. Rhode Island has bass spread from Newport across South County to Block Island, everything from slot fish to 40-pounders keyed on sand eels, with live eels fooling the biggest of them. The Jersey surf is still giving up stripers on sand fleas and clams from Asbury Park down to Bradley Beach, including a 45-incher that ate a metal-lip at Sea Bright this week. Even the Chesapeake has settled into its summer game, with bass tucked tight to shade and shallow structure, eating slow-worked topwaters at dawn and dusk and holding around the Bay Bridge pilings. It’s a summer pattern from Maryland to Massachusetts: find the bait, fish early, and fish late.
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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