Earning My Stripes: Atlantic Canada Road Trip

Earning My Stripes: Atlantic Canada Road Trip

    Wading through the frigid Atlantic, waist deep in rust-hued Ocean surf stirred up from the iron-oxide sediment present in many of Prince Edward Island's beaches I couldn't feel more out of place from my regular fishing haunts in Northeast Ontario. What had led to such a drastic change in angling venues? The pursuit of the iconic striped bass!

    An East Coast Road trip led my family and I to the shores of Prince Edward Island in early June of this year. Beaches, hikes, restaurants, scenic lookouts, and tourist shops remained the priority of the trip, but a desire and curiosity to wade into the ocean and see what I could catch lingered. After we got settled in, I made several trips down to the ocean where I hammered in PVC tubing as impromptu rod holders and cast a couple of rods into the surf rigged with barbless in-line circle hooks and frozen shrimp as bait. After I checked the lines, it was clear that the only animals interested in the shrimp were the crabs, so I went back to my cabin rental to re-strategize and find a more appropriate bait. After conducting some research, it became clear that shrimp was not the best bait to utilize when targeting striped bass, mackerel was the preferred cut bait, and its acquisition would have to wait until after our charter was completed. My family and I went on a fishing charter with Joey's Deep-Sea Fishing out of North Rustico and bait was obtained!

a multiple rod spread; anglers in some tidal waters can use up to 5 rods. I used two to prevent chaos

After speaking to a local at the beach as well as an angler known as Mackenzie Sapier (YouTube and Instagram), and the Captain and Deckhand on the charter we narrowed down our fishing locations for stripers. High tide was recommended and all of the anglers we spoke to recommended casting our bait to the low-lying undulations in between sandbars; these troughs are important zones for predatory fish because they can utilize the added depth to corral baitfish against the sandbars, they are also cruising zones for the striped bass.  

At low tide the undulations in the sand bars can be seen; these reverse saddles offer cruising and ambush lanes for predators to corral baitfish. 

I switched out my catfish rig (Carolina) that I had tied up for this adventure and exchanged them for a high-low striped bass rig with two circle hooks and a 3 oz. pyramid weight that I believed would hold in the sand even during incoming and outgoing tides. In PEI coastal waters anglers can use 5 rods with up to 6 hooks per line but the hooks need to be in-line circle hooks that are barbless when using bait. I had no interest in using 5 lines due to the chaos that could transpire if multiple hook ups occurred, so I instead rigged up 2 rods for me and 2 for my dad.  

The high-low rig I was using for stripers with a barbless 5/0 inline circle hook. This one floated to keep the bait away from crabs. 

Anxiously awaiting some striper activity. 

During my research I discovered that low-light conditions can prove advantageous when pursuing striped bass, so this was the game plan for my dad and I. We attended the beach at 2100 hours with the intention of fishing for the next two hours (you can only fish striped bass 2 hours after sunset in this locale). We started off on low-tide and gradually moved back in towards the beach as the tide slowly crept in engulfing the sandbars and structure as it progressed.  Throughout the night we were gradually pushed back by the tide, casting out baits, reeling them in when our sandbars ceased to be above water and resetting on closer sandbars to the shore as the incoming tide slowly rose erasing tide pools and sand saddles as it crept ever closer.

    To keep myself entertained in between setting and resetting the lines I ventured through the tidepools feeling very nostalgic pursuing invertebrates and small fish species; these non-angling explorations reminded me of hunting for frogs, salamanders, and insects a kid. Several tide pools contained mesmerizing schools of gleaming smelts as their groups undulated back and forth in the current. Hermit crabs, regular crabs, lug worms, and flounder also captivated my attention. The flounder pictured below was hand-wrangled in a small tide pool that was ostracized from the rest of the ocean and promptly released in deeper and less precarious waters for this little oddball species to escape into.  

A small flounder that I hand wrangled then released; caught from a small tide pool 

    Despite having a 'crab-proof' high-low rig tied onto one of my rods ironically it was this set up that caught the first crab of the evening. 

Despite being 'crab proof' my striper rig was still getting scoured by crabs. 

The clock was ticking as the we slowly resisted the encroaching tide, setting and resetting lines with very little action other than pesky crabs that scavenged our mackerel. On the last sandbar of the evening, I hammered in the PVC rod tubes and set the lines with the near certainty that I was again going to return to our rental cabin striper-less. We had 10 minutes remaining of the legal fishing time and things were looking bleak for achieving a bucket list species on this endeavor. I attended a nearby spring that trickled into the ocean and began to gradually clean off my fishing gear of salt and sand with the frigid freshwater leaving all but one fishing rods in the surf. Just as I was retrieving my last rod the unthinkable happened, the rod buckled down and nearly got pulled into the ocean, there was a fish on! I picked up the rod and reeled the line tight immediately feeling the unmistakable headshakes of a strong fish. Because we were fishing so close to shore the water that my bait was set in was no deeper than two feet this caused the fight to be less dramatic than a fight in deeper waters where the fish could dive and create dramatic drag peeling runs. Due to the depth the fish jumped at the surface and made large repetitive headshakes that reminded me of a muskie battle. After a short but thrilling exchange my dad hoisted the fish into the net, and it was revealed to be a very nice striped bass. I did not have a bump board or scale, but I would approximate it at over 30" and 10 plus lbs.; a bucket list fish was caught, and I was surging with adrenaline and dopamine at this accomplishment. For the recently recovered PEI striped bass fishery this was a very respectable specimen, and it will remain one of my favorite catches long into the future. 

My first ever striper, a very respectable fish especially for PEI's recently recovered striper runs 

The next night my dad and I headed out with a similar strategy in mind, to fish the sandbar sloughs as the incoming tide progressed. It was not long after set up that I hooked and landed a nice schoolie-sized striper and then my Dad hooked and landed his first ever striper. Every cast we were getting bites, missing fish, or hooking and landing fish. 

 After an hour we were bait-less but collectively we had 5 more striped bass to our names. Despite the frigid waters we could not have been more ecstatic about these results and this fishery. Hard work and a little research (and local knowledge) contributed to a highly desired species and a couple of nights spent with my dad that I will never forget, and that is what fishing is all about.

patiently waiting

fishing at high tide