East Wind Lights It Up

This big blue hit a Daiwa
SP Minnow at dark.

The schoolies were
on small stuff like
this jig fished off
a float.

I'm not a fan of the east wind.  Most fishermen will tell you that this is the very worst wind to fish in.  Knowing that, I did go down today and faced a strong east wind right in my face.  But, here's the tricky thing about an east wind.  It can be real good at the start (say the first few hours), but once it is blowing for a while, it can foul the water and ruin the fishing.  Well, today's start was good, real good.
It's been an up and down week for me.  One day lots of fish, the next day a blank.  The last two days were not good for me.  Yet, today I found tons of schoolies with fish breaking and birds diving in the white water where I was fishing.  This went on all afternoon and my son Jon and I had a ton of fish all to ourselves. The glut of schoolies were feeding on small bay anchovies that were one to two inches long.  I was using a small bucktail jig off a float, and Jon was using a small Cocahoe off the float.  Both were very effective.
Later, I hit another spot after dark and came away with the biggest blue of the fall for me, a brute of 11-12 lbs. that hit a Daiwa SP Minnow.  I also had a good size schoolie after dark.
I must say that there have been lots of schoolies around this fall, but keepers have been in short supply.  I've put in a lot of time after dark in October and have landed only a couple of small keepers. Hopefully that will change in the coming weeks.

Today's stripers were feeding on big schools of small bait. Here are two
bay achovies that a striper coughed up.