Can you keep a striped bass in New York?

A slot means the fish must fall between those two numbers. Shorter than 28 inches goes back, and so does longer than 31.

Closes each year Closed December 16 through April 14 — the season runs April 15 to December 15

A slot of 28 to 31 inches, adopted in 2023 under an ASMFC Addendum to cut recreational harvest coastwide. Non-offset circle hooks are required when fishing bait, and gaffing is unlawful. Catch and release only during the closed season.

NYSDEC source page

A slot means the fish must fall between those two numbers. Shorter than 23 inches goes back, and so does longer than 28.

Closes each year Closed December 1 through March 31 — the season runs April 1 to November 30

A narrower slot than the marine waters below it: 23 to 28 inches, effective May 1, 2024, replacing the prior 18-to-28-inch slot. NYSDEC set it to cut Hudson River harvest by 14.1 percent.

NYSDEC source page

What we left out on purpose

• dec.ny.gov itself could not be reached for this state — every path we tried (direct fetch, browser render, the 2026 PDF at a different path) hit the same Cloudflare Managed Challenge. Everything here comes from two older official documents plus dated press coverage, cross-checked against each other rather than against the live page.
• Summer flounder, Atlantic cod, cobia and the boat-based tier of scup are left unsettled: the 2023 DEC summary PDF and the codified 6 NYCRR §40.1 table describe structurally different rules for each, not just different numbers, and neither could be confirmed as the newer one without reaching dec.ny.gov directly.
• Everything else on this page matched exactly between the 2023 DEC summary and the codified NYCRR table, or — for striped bass specifically — was confirmed through two dated DEC press releases (2023 for the marine slot, 2024 for the Hudson River slot) that postdate both documents.
• NYSDEC regulates fish differently depending on how an angler is fishing (shore, private boat, or licensed party/charter boat) more often than most states on this site. Where that split changes the number, it is carried here as separate regions rather than folded into one line.
• This page covers New York's marine and coastal district only. New York also publishes an entirely separate freshwater fishing guide (bass, trout, walleye, pike and panfish in lakes, ponds and inland streams) that is not carried here.