Parts of the south shore beachfront have been inundated with red weed this spring. There is the most weed I have ever seen in my 65 years of fishing this area. I was out yesterday and found places where the weed was piled 3, 4 and even 5 FEET high on the shoreline. In places there was reddish, brown weed saturated water as far as you could cast. In places, this goes on for miles. It has made fishing parts of the RI south shore impossible.
I have no explanation as to why the weed situation is this bad. Some say persistent big storms with southwest winds in the beginning of April brought it all in. Even those big northwest blows we had in the last three days did nothing to lessen the problem.
The weed situation has really affected the fishing and the fishing activity. There have been fewer fishermen out this year than in previous years. Pick your culprit: poor fishing, high gas prices, weed, bad weather, less fish. Whatever the problem, April striped bass fishing has been way off. I would venture to say the worst numbers I have seen in decades. Yes, there are fish around, but you have to do a lot of looking and casting. You also will have to first find clean water before you can even fish.
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| This is what parts of the RI south shore beachfront look like. Mountains of weed are piled 3,4 and even 5 feet high on the shore, making fishing impossible in a lot of locations. |
