American kayak angler Fishing With Jonny has declared the 2026 spring striped bass migration officially on in the New Jersey and New York area, releasing a two-day report that turned a slow first session into a slot and over-slot bite in shallow bay water on his own Slammer lure.
The video, uploaded two days ago, follows Jonny down from his usual grounds to a new bay he has never fished before. "It's early April and as you know, early April kind of sucks. It's cold, it's windy, but I'm actually down south a little bit chasing the striper migration. I'm in the New York, New Jersey area," he tells viewers at the launch. Side-scan sonar on day one shows him the problem is not location. "My side scan was completely loaded with stripers and I was like, there is no way it can be this easy, but it was. I just launched into a massive pile of fish."
What the fish on the graph does not do is feed. Jonny works through an early session with a small 3-inch X-Rap before admitting the day has gone sideways. "This is not a good outing." Hours of trolling eventually produce a single quality fish at last light on the Slammer. "Nothing not crazy crazy, but best fish of the day on the black Slammer, baby. That's a fat bass."
Day two is a reversal. The same shallow bay fires at a faster retrieve, with stripers visibly chasing the Slammer to the kayak. "Big striper. Big striper just followed. Just followed the Slammer. Big striper. They're starting to follow right in. This is good," Jonny says on one of the first eats. The bite holds up through the afternoon as the water warms, with most fish landing between 26 and 32 inches. "I think they're just really fired up. On the Slammer."
He credits a specific retrieve. "All I'm doing is just like a pretty standard retrieve. I'm actually speeding it up a little bit. Doing like a medium to fast retrieve. Just kind of steady. And it seems to be drawing these hits." Jonny has also shifted to single hooks for a conservation-minded release pattern. "Single hooks are the way to go in this scenario when they're starting to chew really good and they're really stacked up."
He keeps the marketing low-key despite the Slammer being sold through his own site. "I'm super quick about these slammers. I mean, I'm not going to try and be too promo-y with them this year, but they are a great lure." The lure's larger profile, he says, is what pulled the size up once the bite turned on.
The underlying takeaway is simple: after a long winter, the early-April striper run is active in the New Jersey and New York bays even with water temperatures still in the high 30s. "Metric ton of striped bass in these waters. Spring is here. Although the temps are like pretty close to 30 in the high 30s right now."
Jonny plans to move to a new area for the final day of the trip looking for larger fish. "I could come back tomorrow and probably do the same exact thing, but we'll probably for my last day change locations to somewhere else. Leaving fish to find fish, but I am trying to find some bigger bass than what I found here today."
For East Coast anglers watching the 2026 migration, the early-season lesson is clear — the fish are in the shallow bays, and the slot-class bite rewards patience on day one and a faster retrieve on day two.
