Un Freakin' Real

Stripers in close and albies out
far as the fish were on the
rampage today.

I've seen some wild days in the last two weeks, but today goes down as one of the wildest I have seen in years.
I almost didn't fish today as I was going to make this one a day of rest after a hard week of fishing.  But, that all changed when my son Jon called to say things were just nuts along the oceanfront with fish all over the place.  So, I grabbed the stuff, jumped into the car and sped toward the oceanfront.

Stripers by the thousands hit the shore
today.  This was the largest of over sixty
stripers that we landed on jigs.

What I found was simply astounding. School after school of stripers were tearing through massive schools of bay anchovies that were collecting close to shore.  Out farther were good numbers of albies tearing through more schools of bait that was out far.  In some rough water in close I saw waves washing big numbers of frenzied stripers and baitfish right onto the rocks, only to be washed back into the sea on the next wave.  THIS WENT ON ALL AFTERNOON!
Jon and I landed over sixty stripers with most of them hefty schoolies in the 24 inch range though we had several near keepers as well as one thirty inch fish. In addition, I landed one good size albie and Jon also got a big blue.  We got all these fish on bucktail jigs and jigheads threaded with Cocahoe minnows.  Jon was using his lure off a float while I was fishing mine without the float. The albie was caught on the float and fly.
We weren't the only ones catching.  A picket fence of fishermen gathered as the afternoon moved on, and it seemed at times that everyone was catching on a variety of lures and plugs.  I must say everyone was having a great time. Reminded me of the good ole days.