A Preview of What's to Come?

The last three weeks have been horrible fishing-wise for me. I've been getting very few fish along the RI shoreline and that unmentionable spot north of here has been a bust so far for just about everyone. In addition, I have seen very little bait near shore.  I know the boat guys who fish Block Island are doing well, but that's a mighty long cast from shore.

This striper was feeding close to shore on small peanut bunker.
The peanuts will light up the fishing from shore in the coming
weeks.

Last night I ran into a bit of an uptick in activity for the first time in a long time.  In a RI spot I fished, I was greeted by schools of small peanut bunker for the first time this year.  That bait will eventually light up our inshore fishing regardless of the water temperatures. For the first time in a long time, I saw individual fish as well as small groups of bluefish breaking.  Though they were mostly way out and very fussy, I did manage to get one small one. Near dark some stripers started breaking also.  These were fussy schoolies, but I did get a couple of them to hit a small jig. It was activity that I have not seen in weeks and a preview of what to expect in the coming weeks.

In the last two years, the surf fishing for stripers and blues has exploded in August due to the arrival of vast schools of peanut bunker. We are heading in that direction again this year based on what I saw last night. It's a matter of time.