Ground Zero for Giants

The Z-Man® crew taps Chesapeake Bay’s epic striped bass bite

Ladson, SC (February 6, 2025) - “You’re looking at the birthplace for over eighty percent of the striped bass swimming along the entire Atlantic Coast,” declares Captain Stephen Griffin, an eminent fishing guide who plies his craft on the waterway he calls ground zero for anadromous striped bass.

For that matter, consider it the single largest aquatic nursery in America—a sprawling, shallow water playground that’s fueled by 51 billion gallons of freshwater from 100,000 creeks and rivers daily. Its massive watershed encompasses over five-hundred miles of real estate stretching 500 miles from New York to Virginia. In the celebrated Chesapeake Bay, a hearty stew of aquatic inhabitants supply over 500 million pounds of seafood annually.

But for Captain Griffin, his cohort Captain Drew Grahame and thousands of likeminded anglers, the bay’s generosity starts and ends with the illustrious "rockfish." And in recent years, the need to harvest Chesapeake Bay striped bass wisely and selectively has inspired the Maryland based guide service to cater to catch-and-release oriented anglers who favor epic angling experiences over a pile of fillets.

“We’ve caught 100-plus fish on a single ElaZtech® bait,” asserts Griffin, whose boat daily attracts a virtual fleet of followers hoping to share in the action. “We use single hook lures with Z-Man soft plastics for our catch-and-release fishing because they attract aggressive eats, last forever, and yield the highest striper survival rates possible."

Griffin, who caters to catch-and-release oriented anglers targeting a bucket list bass, channels the late, great Lee Wulff . . . “These giant stripers can easily exceed 30 years of age, which translates to over two decades of spawning seasons . . . To me, big fish are always more valuable back in the water.”