Friday, August 14, 2015

Bait, Stripers Back, BUT Loads of Weed

I landed this hefty schoolie last evening right at dark.
There's lots of bait around the oceanfront and some
fussy stripers feeding on it.
There's a lot of bait around and stripers are also around in good numbers though the oceanfront has really been kicked up in the last week making fishing from shore difficult in many areas.  I got out a couple of times this week and landed some fish, but no big numbers.
Here's what has been happening.  First off, you have to find a weed free spot to fish which is not that easy.  Most of the south facing shorelines are so clogged with weed that fishing is impossible from shore.  The rocky, east facing shorelines are better, but not great.  Each time I fished, you could see birds working way out in the evening daylight.  As it got closer to dark, the birds and schools of small bait moved closer to shore.  Right before dark I would see sporadic jumps of stripers hitting the small bait.  There was no frenzy as they were just whirling and lazily feeding.  There were also no schools of fish as there were jumps here and there in the places I fished.  These fish were very fussy.  About the only thing they would occasionally hit was a 7 1/2 inch white Slug-Go.  I tried everything else in my bag with no success.  I suspect that the warm water combined with the tiny bait (bay anchovies) has them very finicky. Once it was pitch dark everything seemed to come to an end.
One other note here is that I never saw another fisherman in the two evenings I fished.  From what I have heard, the few fishermen who are getting out are hitting the shore in the early morning and doing fairly well.
With all this bait around, expect the fishing to explode in September with albies and stripers leading the hit parade.