Posted on April 22, 2019 You should have been out on Easter for monster bass Striper fishing in Raritan Bay couldn’t have been any better when Matt Calabria took his father Hector out after Easter dinner. They started out doubling up trolling mo-jos, and then did the same chunking with bass to over 30 pounds — before the big girl took hold. Hector eventually released a huge bass full of roe that was the fish of his life. It was 53 inches long to the fork of the tail with a 33 1/2-inch girth — and weighed 51 pounds on one scale and 50.8 on another. Yet, if the measurements are right it would have been much larger than that by the formula of length times girth squared divided by 800. It  was too big for Hector to hold, so the photo below is of Matt holding the trophy before her release to pass on her big bass genes in the Hudson River next month.. As good as that fishing was yesterday, it should have still been like that today in light winds. However, party boat reports were poor. Capt. Ron Santee of the Fishermen from Atlantic Highlands called it a bummer as he read fish that wouldn’t bite and ended up searching all over the bay and ocean for action. He even waited for the afternoon outgoing tide which didn’t change anything except bring some rain. Capt. Rob Semkewyc of the Sea Hunter from Atlantic Highlands said the bass were very scattered and hard to catch. His fares caught a few and lost a couple, but it was very disappointing.  Of course, every day is different in fishing — and the forecast is fine with light west winds for days to come.