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| Keepers were in the mix tonight. |
My brother Steve and I went out last evening in the boat along the oceanfront. Instead of going way offshore in deep water, we fished close to shore in about 20 feet of water. We hit the biggest August blitz of stripers I have ever seen. It was as good as any October blitz I have ever witnessed. There were several big flocks of birds, sometimes over a hundred at a time, hitting the water in a wide area, and there were stripers of all sizes busting for bait right under the birds. It appeared that the bait was small sandeels from what the bass were spitting up, but you saw nothing in the water. Where the fish were not busting, the fish finder was lit up with fish under us, sometimes 10 feet thick. Surprising thing was that there was not another boat around us at the height of the fishing!
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A Zoom fluke along with a Red
Gill teaser landed this double header. |
And, yes, the fish were hitting. We lost count as to how many we landed. The hot lures were sandeel imitators. Kastmaster XL, that long and skinny version of a Kastmaster, was hot until a couple of blues cut them off. Five inch Zoom flukes mounted on a jighead were also hot. I was using a Red Gill teaser ahead of my lure and that was catching them, sometimes double headers at times. When the fish were breaking, we would cast into them, and they would aggressively take right away. When nothing was showing, we would lower the offering to the bottom and bounce it as we drifted along. When the fishfinder showed fish, we would be on. These fish were all sizes but the average seemed to be about 24 inches. We had some keepers in the mix and some smaller ones too.
Maybe it's this current shot of cooler nights that has gotten things going. However you slice it, the fishing is definitely on the upswing, and you know it will only get better once we add false albacore to the mix.
