This past week saw wild weather swings but one thing remained the same along the oceanfront. It was exceptional striper fishing. We had big numbers of large fish in that northeast blow in the beginning of the week. The hot action was widespread from Westerly to Newport with exceptional numbers of fish in the 28 to 40 inch range. In mid week, the big blows and rough seas subsided, but the fishing remained excellent. Finally, we had this bluebird weather of the last two days along with flat calm seas, but still the fishing still remained excellent.
In the last seven days I have been able to find blitzing stripers somewhere along the oceanfront and even in multiple locations on a daily basis. Today, I walked into a massive mid day blitz that stretched for about half a mile along one stretch of oceanfront (see the video below on just a small part of the action). The stripers were blitzing on huge schools of bay anchovies. They were fussy, but the float and fly was a killer, landing big numbers of stripers in the 25 to 30 inch size range. About half the fish I landed today were slots. At one point I looked down into the clear water, and just like looking into an aquarium, I could see thousands of stripers in front of me.
The action has been red hot in the daylight hours but it has also been very good after dark. I got good numbers of stripers when fishing at night several times this week.
Albies made an appearance today in some sections of the coast but it appears like their numbers have been greatly reduced as a result of the northeast blow. Still, I know of several that were caught today, and I did see some breaking way out in the spot I was fishing.
Bluefish have been non-existent. While I saw thousands of stripers landed this week, I did not see a single bluefish caught.
So, it looks like this weekend should deliver big time striper action along the oceanfront and even in the Bay. You might have to do some looking, but chances are pretty good that you will come upon a blitz of stripers wherever you fish.
