A lot of fishing reports came out today. Most of them indicated that stripers were now being caught along the southern New England oceanfront. What they failed to tell you was just how many fish were taken in the last few days. Yes, it is true that some fish were caught. I have reliable info that confirms this. But, the number of fish that were caught could be probably be counted on one hand. These fish, some of which had sea lice, were most likely the "scouts", those few fish that move along ahead of the main migration. Your chances of scoring a fish this week would be mighty slim given the scant numbers.
But, clearly the scouts have arrived, and the bulk of the migration should follow shortly. With favorable weather conditions starting on Sunday, I suspect next week will see the arrival of big numbers of stripers along RI's south shore and even in 'Gansett Bay. Many of these fish should be in the 20 to 26 inch range with occasional slot limit keepers. This is all based on the masses of schoolies that we had around last year. Stripers in this size range gain about 4 inches in length a year, and we had a lot of 20 to 24 inch schoolies last year. So, expect big numbers of hefty schoolies this spring.
I got my surf bag ready yesterday. I mostly packed it with jigs....Cocachoes on jigheads, flukes on jigheads and bucktail jigs. I also packed a lot of plastic like extra Cocahoes and Zoom flukes along with plastic grub tails that I'll use on the bucktail jigs. I'll fish these jigs alone or off a wooden egg float. It's not complicated in the early going, and jigs will catch the majority of the early season stripers.
