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| Yup, they are still around. This was one of the big surprises of the day. |
I was out for stripers this morning, and I did land good numbers of them. However, the bite quickly faded. At that point I noticed something else going on in front of me- albies breaking way out. Not a lot of them but occasional lone fish or a few at a time breaking. I knew this would be tough since there were not that many, and I also knew they were super fussy at this time of year. On top of that, they were feeding on micro bay anchovies.
I also knew from past experience that there could also be black sea bass around. Everything eats these small bay anchovies, and they were in abundance again today. In the past I've let my metal lure (in this case, a Clarkspoon) sink to the bottom and jig it back to the shore just like you would a bucktail, and occasionally it would produce a black sea bass.
So I decided to try for BOTH black sea bass and albies. I'd let the lure sink to the bottom and jig it a few times then reel it ashore and hope something hits it. Right away, I started getting hits, and I hooked up to a decent black sea bass. After that first one, they seemed to come one after another. I'm guessing I had a school of them in front of me. I was surprised that many of them that I landed were good size. Then on one cast, I jigged the Clarkspoon a few times and got nothing so I proceeded to reel it ashore. Suddenly, BANG, the rod arched, and I was onto a freight train. I knew this was no black sea bass as it ran off line at a frenzied pace. After a back and forth battle I had an albie in the wash and up onto the shore.
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| This was another big surprise today as I jigged up good numbers of large black sea bass using a Clarkspoon. |
Switching tactics and jigging jigging today extended my fishing day and provided a good amount of excitement and surprises. Keep this in mind next time the striper action slows. There are other fish out there!
