Bluefish Take Over

I got this blue last night on a
plastic shad body. The blues have
been fussy at times and plastic
sometimes does the trick.

In the last week, the striper fishing has dwindled down to an occasional small schoolie in the Bay.  On the other hand the bluefish fishing has just taken off in this warm weather.  I checked the NOAA site this morning for water temperatures and was surprised to find the surface water at Conimicut was a hot 79 degrees.  Most of the Bay water was running in the mid to high 70's. Even the oceanfront was running in the low 70's. That has driven most of the good size stripers right out, and they have been replaced by bluefish.  The Bay is still full of all kinds of bait and that's keeping the blues active.
The blues have been running all sizes.  On one cast I'll catch a 12 incher, several casts later might produce a 6 pounder, and if you can find large menhaden around, you might even hook into a real large fish up to 15 lbs.
The other surprising thing is that many of these blues have been fussy. I've seen evenings where they are tearing through bait yet unwilling to hit most artificials. This does happen in the summer.  I was fishing next to a friend the other night and he was having the best success on 4 inch plastic shad bodies on jigheads.  I'm not a fan of using plastics for blues, but if it's the only thing that is working so be it.  I've gotten some this week on Jumpin Minnows and bucktail jigs as both have worked at times.
So, it's July, it's hot, and the striper fishing has taken a dive from shore.  All pretty normal. The good news is that there is still good action to be had if you like fishing for blues.