My son Jon went down to the oceanfront today looking for his first migrating striper. Like everyone else who has been fishing there this week, he got nothing. On his way home he called me to discuss some spots in the Bay that just might have a fish or two. I gave him my spot suggestion, and sure enough he did catch one fish and had another on. The schoolie he caught did have sea lice, a sure sign this was a migrating fish.
It was no surprise to me that that first one I know of was caught far northward from the oceanfront in the Bay. It's happened to me in many of those years that were dominated by sudden, very warm weather like we are having now. Shallow areas of the Bay warm up very quickly in this hot weather and some places will hold water that will be five to as much as ten degrees warmer than the oceanfront. Those warmer areas will get the first arriving fish very active.
Many years ago, I remember one year in which I was catching huge numbers of schoolies way up in the Providence River before a single fish was landed along the oceanfront. Yet, another year I was catching them in the Upper Bay a week before any fish were landed along the oceanfront. Still, another time, a friend of mine was catching big numbers of stripers in a mid Bay location before I could land a single fish along the oceanfront. In all these instances I described above, the fish were loaded with sea lice.
In my opinion, the season has started. Still, no big numbers, but that is coming soon. Might happen along the oceanfront, but might just happen in the Bay first.
