Menhaden Still in the Upper Bay, CRAZY

In the last post I added a picture of a decent sized striped bass that I landed last night in the upper Bay.  What I didn't say was that this fish was taken with a jig (4 inch Zoom fluke on jighead) fished under a school of menhaden (pogies).  Yes, they are still in the Upper Bay in big numbers. Crazy, they should have left a month and a half ago.  In fact, there was so many of them, it was rare for me to retrieve the jig without snagging one (see pic) on the single hook!  I'm guessing they were in schools that may have been 10-15 feet THICK. With menhaden still around, I'm hoping we see good number of large stripers around. In the past I have landed wintering over fish that measured over 40 inches. This could happen this year with the abundance of big bait around.  We could also see some big blues. You would be very surprised if I told you I landed a blue one year in the upper Bay on Christmas Eve, and that was in a cold winter. You never know if this winter fishing will materialize, but I am hopeful that we will at least see fair to good numbers of keepers in the coming weeks.