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| Here is one of five schoolies landed this week. The spring run of stripers has bee a trickle of fish thus far. |
I fished long and hard for 5 days in a row this week. I came away with exactly 5 fish, all under slots and mostly small. I would call the beginning spring striper run more of a trickle rather than a run. Doesn't matter where you fish. There are a few fish all over in both the Bay and along the oceanfront, but no decent numbers anywhere that I looked, and I fished a lot of places.
Here is the problem. The early run of fish in the past has been a schoolie game. And, loads of them. We all know that the small fish are in very short supply. With few around, the early spring fishing is bound to be slow. The larger fish, near slots, slots and over slots, don't tend to arrive till late April and early May. I think that is when the fishing should perk up.
In addition, the weather has been all over the place this week. Cold, warm, north winds, southwest winds, dry, rain. But, I've seen weather all over the place in the past and it still was good because there were lots of schoolies around.
And, finally, I've seen a lot of guys around who just have no idea how to fish for these early run schoolies. I've seen fishermen with 12 foot surf rods casting 7 inch swimmers. Come on man! It's very simple at this time of year- light tackle and jigs rule the surf. Small bucktail jigs, Cocahoes and three inch NLBN paddle tails will catch the majority of the early season fish.
