East Coast kayak YouTuber Fishing With Jonny has filed a two-day early-April report from the New Jersey and New York area declaring the 2026 striped bass spring migration active, and laying out the pattern that turned a picky first session into a steady slot-class bite in shallow water.
Jonny drove south from his usual grounds and launched into a bay he had not 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. The first look at the side-scan told him he had found the fish immediately. "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."
Finding the bass turned out to be the easy part. A long session with the small 3-inch X-Rap produced only occasional short hits, and Jonny admitted on camera that the first day had gone badly: "This is not a good outing." A switch to the larger black Slammer finally produced the day's best fish at sunset. "Best fish of the day on the black Slammer, baby. That's a fat bass."
Day two flipped the bite. The same bay, the same schools, with warming water and a sped-up retrieve saw stripers visibly chasing to the kayak. "Big striper. Big striper just followed. Just followed the Slammer. They're starting to follow right in," he says on one of the first strong eats. Most of the fish landed in a 26 to 32-inch window, with healthy bellies on them. "They're not, you know, these aren't like huge jumbos, but they're nice fat healthy slots and they're hitting in really shallow water."
The retrieve he landed on is slightly faster than a standard bay roll. "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." He had also swapped out factory trebles for single hooks. "Single hooks are the way to go in this scenario when they're starting to chew really good and they're really stacked up."
Jonny kept the lure plug low key despite the Slammer being a product he ships through his own site. "I'm not going to try and be too promo-y with them this year, but they are a great lure — and if you can want to support the channel, I have them for sale on my website."
His closing assessment is the headline for East Coast anglers watching the run: the fish are in, even if the water isn't warm. "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 is planning to change locations on his final day of the trip in search of bigger bass. "I'm trying to find some bigger bass than what I found here today."
