We are in an unusual early May lull right now. Between myself, my son Jon and my friends we have been out in force along the oceanfront and the Bay, from shore and from the kayak, since the weekend. No one that I know of had any big catches this weekend. It seems that those millions of small ones that were around the oceanfront in April have moved on.
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| Here's a schoolie over 20 inches that I caught recently from the Bay. Most of April's schoolies have been very small. |
I have been looking in the Bay for the last three days. I was guessing the big numbers of fish moved into the Bay, but it's been only fair action for me. Yesterday I fished an upper Bay location from shore and landed 5 schoolies. Today I went out in the kayak in a "sure bet" location. I got only 5 small ones. So, I'm not exactly killing it.
So far the size of the fish has been a major disappointment. Most of the stripers are 10 to 16 inches, real small stuff. In the month of April, I landed almost 400 stripers, yet only 12 fish were in the 20 to 26 inch range. That tells you what we are dealing with.
I feel that the larger schoolies and slot limit keepers are coming. Last year mid May was red hot for larger schoolies and slots. Think about this....we had astronomical numbers of 20 to 25 inch schoolies last fall. They should be back this year (I hope).
