Good bye and good riddance to August. It was one of the worst months of fishing for stripers and blues I have ever experienced.
Yesterday, Sept. 1, I headed to the 'Gansett shore and within an hour I caught more stripers than I did the entire month of August. I suspect the cold nights of the last few days, the light northeast wind and last week's hurricane waves have gotten a fall run in motion. In the daytime, I saw fish breaking all along the shoreline from Narragansett Beach to Point Judith, but they were generally way out. There was also tons of rain bait along the whole shore with flocks of birds diving after the bait. The oceanfront has come to life.
I had my best luck around Point Judith. The hot lures in the daytime were small blucktail jigs (flathead) spiced with plastic curly tails, good bets when rain bait is present. After dark, I hit some fish with swimmers (Bombers) and Hogys. All the stripers I landed were schoolies from 20 inches to just shy of keeper size (see photo at right).
Rumor has it that big numbers of bonito and false albacore also moved in and boaters were scoring on these fish in the morning.
Let the fall games begin!!!!
