We are catching some big numbers of schoolies in this rough and nasty rainy weather of the last two days. Yesterday my son Ben fished the oceanfront in very rough conditions. After trying several spots, he found a place in which the stripers had bay anchovies corralled in a cove. He told me he had a fish on just about every cast using a Cocahoe on a jighead. After an hour or so, he landed 35 schoolies. Most of these fish were in the 20-25 inch range with no keepers. Surprisingly, there were no blues or albies. Today, I stayed in the upper Bay. I also checked several spots and finally I found a load of fish feeding on small bait. My catch for the afternoon was 22 schoolies. I got them all on 3/8 oz. flathead bucktail jigs with curly tails. Unlike yesterday, they would not take a surface plug today. Most of my fish today were in the 15-22 inch range (see photo). They were fun to catch on the light tackle (small rod, small reel, 10 lb. test mono) I was using.
So, suddenly there are a lot of schoolies around along both the Bay and the oceanfront. Fishing continues to be very good, but you have to really look around to find the fish. They are concentrated in tight areas where there is a lot of bait.
