Everything in Place for a Great Fall

For the boat fishermen, big blues have been around in
good numbers this past week. Expect this action to
continue into the fall with albies, bonito and stripers
joining the hit parade of September fish.

It is shaping up to be a great fall.  All we need now is a little cool weather to drop the water temperatures and the fishing will explode.  There is a large amount of bait along the oceanfront.  I have seen more peanut bunker than I have seen in years. Already it is attracting good numbers of bluefish and bonito.  Bay anchovies are also around in abundance.  There is even squid around as we hooked a couple yesterday with a jig.  A big blue I landed yesterday was puking both squid and baby scup. In addition, there is the occasional school of large menhaden. With all that bait around, the fishing has to get real good once the fall migrations begin.
Right now the surface water temperatures along the oceanfront are in the low to mid 70's.  Way too warm for stripers.  That explains the downturn in striper fishing for shore fishermen in the last couple of weeks. Once the cooler weather arrives and the water temperatures drop into the upper sixties I expect the striper fishing to explode. The blues are active in that warm water. That explains why we are catching them.  I've landed more blues this week than all of last year, and they have been good sizes.
I know of no albies that have been caught yet, but I suspect it is a matter of time.  In the past they have arrived in the final days of August or the first week in September. By mid September, that fishery should be hopping.
So long as we don't get any big storms such as a tropical storm or a hurricane, expect September to be a banner month.