Striper fishing here in RI is poor, no other way to say it. We are off to one of the worst starts in decades. There just have not been a lot of migrating fish around this spring. There are some, but the numbers are WAY OFF compared to recent years. Just for a comparison, I went back and checked my logs. Note that these are the results for migrating fish only from April 15 to May 7. I am not counting the holdovers. Back in 2020, I landed 123 bass at this point. In 2021, a banner spring, I had 365 fish. This year, 2022, I've gotten a mere 40 stripers. Note that I have gone just about the same number of times in those years in many of the same locations that have produced in the past.
The strange thing about this year is that I am catching fish on just about every outing with very few blanks. Yet, the numbers are not there. It's been a couple of fish here, a few there. They have been all sizes with no consistency. The other day in the kayak I had a 14 inch fish, a 22 inch fish and a 35 inch fish!
It's easy to point to the usual problems this year- poor weather, unfavorable winds, cold water, lots of weed- yet the fact remains that the fish have been migrating along the south shore since April 15. I'm not hopeful that we are going to see big numbers in the next couple of weeks. But, I am hoping that schools of menhaden enter the Bay and larger fish are on them, just like what happened last year. If it happens it will occur in late May or early June.
Fishing pressure has not been what it has been in other years. I think the poor fishing combined with high gas prices and poor weather has less fishermen out there trying.
