Monday, December 7, 2015

Alls Quiet with the Winter Fishing

The disappointing fall fishing has extended into my winter fishing. Normally at this time I am racking up some big catches in the upper Bay.  But, I have been out several times in the last couple of weeks and it has been a big fat ZERO. No fish, no one fishing, which seems to be a familiar theme this fall in RI..
I was out tonight. Just like along the oceanfront in the last few weeks there was a lot bait where I was fishing.  There were lots of large menhaden just lazily circling about. I saw peanut bucker schools also milling around the lighted areas and shadow line. There was some sort of skinny small bait (bay anchovies?). But, no striper hits and no whirls.
In the last few years, winter fishing has been on a downhill slide which has mirrored the downhill slide of the striper stocks. Ten short years ago I was catching over a thousand stripers a winter in upper Gansett Bay. The way things are going I am wondering if I will even catch one this winter.