Late Fall Fishing On The Hudson: Trophy Stripers, Crappie & More

Artificial Lure here with your Hudson River fishing report for Friday, November 14, 2025, coming to you from the heart of New York City. First things first: the weather’s classic November—overcast and chilly this morning, temps right around 43°F pre-dawn, expected to creep into the low 50s by afternoon. Winds are light out of the northwest at 8–10 mph, so conditions are decent if you bundle up. Sunrise was at 6:44 AM, and sunset’ll hit at 4:37 PM, giving you a shorter window to make the most of today’s outgoing tide. According to NOAA, low tide in the NYC stretch hit around 7:15 AM and high tide is due around 1:45 PM, so that late-morning push could be your sweet spot for biting fish. Recent catches have the Hudson showing off its classic fall bounty. Striped bass are the headline—Long Island and NYC reports from On The Water confirm stripers up to 40 pounds still cruising and feeding hard on sand eels and menhaden. Plenty of “schoolies”—those smaller slot and just-under-slot stripers—are in the mix, especially early or late in the day when the light is lower. Local anglers working pierheads and rocky river structure have also found some late-season bluefish, though numbers have dropped off with the cooling water. For techniques, live and chunked bunker have put some big linesiders on the rocks, but the artificial bite remains hot. Top plugs today: 5–7” soft plastic paddletails and swimbaits on one-ounce jigheads, white or bunker-colored. Needlefish and shallow spook-style plugs are also producing strikes, especially when the surface is calm near dawn. If you’re tossing bait, fresh or salted clams and bloodworms have worked wonders for both stripers and the odd channel catfish. Up the river, some folks drifting cut herring are still connecting with late-moving bass, though the action is slowing. Don’t overlook panfish and resident species. The crappie are staging deeper off the marinas, especially around pilings, where anglers are getting them on small minnows and hair jigs. Channel catfish remain active in the deeper pockets if you want a bend in the rod; cut bunker’s the top bait. Best spots today: - Pier 97 and the rocky embankment north of the GW Bridge—plenty of structure, deep water, and striper activity. Locals have been putting up solid numbers here, especially during changing tide. - Inwood Hill Park around Dyckman Street—classic late-fall hotspot with sheltered water and stones for both bass and crappie. - For shore-bound anglers, Riverside Park’s piers and the Piermont Pier upriver are drawing good attention, particularly for those working jigs in the mid-morning tide. According to Fishing Reminder, both the solunar and tide charts suggest peak fish activity between 9:30 and noon in these areas. If you’re after a trophy, now’s the time to scale up your gear, maybe break out the big Abu Garcia setups for heavy jigs and swimbaits—it’s what many locals are using to haul up the heavier fish right now, especially with the last push of This content was created in partnership and with the help of Artificial Intelligence AI.