Monster Striped Bass

by Dom Costantino
(Delaware)

Well, my father and I were fishing at the Indian River inlet on Tuesday, May 17. I had caught a 35 inch striper about a hour into the night.

At this spot we caught a couple stripers with some friends the day before. Anyway, we moved from the Northside of the inlet to the Southside.

At around 9:30 pm I hooked into this monster 45 inch, 40.2 lb striped bass. I fought it for about 10 minutes before it even broke water. As I pulled it in closer it flipped out breaking my rod. Once that happened the hook came out, but luckily my friend got the most amazing gaff on it.

Jason's response for catching a Monster Striper:

Awesome catch Dom! It sounds like you found a sweet little honey hole.

It sucks that the beast broke your rod, but I'm sure it was well worth it. Great job to your fishing buddy to be able to gaff that sucker just in the knick of time.

I've gotta tell ya, there's been plenty of times where I've gotten stripers, and other species of fish, up ready to land them and they've either shook the hook or broke me off from a ferocious head shake. In some of those instances, a gaff could have came in handy for the fish I planned on keeping. For the most part, the rest of the times were catch and release, but it's still cool just to get to see the fish.

Anyways, thanks for sharing your monster striped bass and cool story. Nice job!