The author with a striped bass hooked on a prior fishing trip. Striper fishermen Roger Zalucky, left, of Troy, and Jack Whitman of Colonie both hook into fish while wading the Hudson River Friday ...

A happy Michael Sobotor, of Warwick, N.Y., holds up a monster, 48-inch striped bass he recently caught and released in the Hudson River. He wrote: This is my first year Striper fishing (got lucky).

I’ve fished for more than 20 years, and I caught my first striped bass 18 years ago in Noyack Bay on the East End of Long Island, where I fell in love with the sport on summer vacations as a boy.