Winter Fishing Off, Way Off

Well, the good times can't last forever. Up until this year, we had been on quite a run of winter fishing in the Providence River. But, this winter it has all slowed to a crawl. In past years I would average about a hundred fish a month in January. Not this year. With a decent effort ( at least a fifteen times fishing this month on the right tides and conditions), I have landed a grand total of 10 fish. The fish are not there in any numbers and the fishermen are not around either....that says a lot.
We shouldn't be surprised by this lack of fish. Fishing was fair to poor in the Upper Bay in the summer and late fall with the numbers of stripers way down. Additionally, the trend of the last five winters in the Providence River has been a downward spiral with decreasing numbers of stripers.
I don't believe the striper fishery is as healthy as many would lead you to believe. There was a noticeable lack of schoolies around in the Bay and along the RI oceanfront this year, and that does not bode well for the future.

Shrimp Teasers (Revisited)

Shrimp fly teasers are some of the very best teasers to use for srping schoolies. The wintertime is a great time to sit with the fly tying vice and make a bunch of these. They are tied with a hooks that range in size from #4 to 1/0. I use a Mustad 34007 hook. The body can be tied with olive, green, brown or grey chenille.The narrated video below shows as well as explains how it is done. This is a great teaser to use in the spring ahead of a small bucktail jig or a plastic bodied jig for schoolies.

You Tube Striper Videos

Many of the videos that have been featured in the past are now on You Tube. I will try to post a lot of how-to videos on that site as well as some technique related stuff. To access these videos, go to the You Tube site at http://www.youtube.com/ Once there, type in ristripedbass in the search box. All of the catalogued videos should appear. I've also put a link to the site on the information column at the left.

2009, Year in Review

Well, the striper fishing for me was a rollercoaster ride in 2009. It was an up and down year with lots of twists and turns.
Spring fishing was fair at best with poorer than expected numbers of schoolies in the upper Bay and along the oceanfront. Early boat fishing in the mid Bay was good for about a week in mid May with good numbers of large schoolies and small keeper bass chasing rain bait. Boat fishing was good for large keeper bass in Narragansett Bay in late May and early June until the pogy boats entered the Bay in June and cleaned out the pogies. That began one of the poorest stretches of striper fishing I have ever encountered with a very poor fishing continuing all summer. There was little bait along the oceanfront and the Bay and very few fish to be had. The season was salvaged in the fall as the fishing suddenly perked up in September and remained red hot into early November. There was one four week stretch in which I must have landed 700 stripers with scores of keeper fish while fishing along Narragansett and the south shore beaches. I have no idea where all these fish came from. Winter fishing in December in the Providence River was off compared to past years but there were decent numbers of keepers around.
If you would have asked me in the summer to sum up the season, I would have said poor. Thanks to the fall fishing, I would give the overall season a "good".
I put together a short video of some of my favorite pictures of the past season. Click on the YouTube video, sit back, turn up the volume and enjoy!