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| Here's a November schoolie that hit my NLBN paddle tails. It was a subpar November with schoolies in short supply. |
November is in the books, and it was NOT memorable. There was a time just a short while ago when November shore fishing was lights out. I remember that surf casters would simply sit on a lawn chair on any of those south shore beaches and just wait for waves of fish to move along the beach. Almost daily blitzes were common along much of the south shore of RI. In fact, I wrote many times that November was the new best month of the fall. Not this year. That has all gone by the wayside this in what I think might be a new trend for future Novembers.
For me, this November was a matter of picking off fish here and there. I would probe the white water, fish the boulder fields and work the breachway currents in search of a fish here and there. Rarely did I find blitzing fish with birds diving and lots of bait. And, even when I did find numbers of fish, I rarely saw anything showing.
This subpar November fishing exposes a big problem with the striped bass fishery. Novembers in the past, especially the second half of the month, used to be dominated by small schoolies, those fish in the 16 to 20 inch range. Those schoolies used to make up the bulk of the late November migration. Today, because of poor spawning in the Chesapeake Bay for the last 4 years, there are fewer and fewer of these schoolies around. Generally, I saw almost none all year until the end of November when we had some.
Everyone will rave about the bigger fish that were around in good numbers this year, mostly slots in the 28 to 31 inch range, but I also think there were less of them than last year for shore fishermen. Mixed in with those few November schoolies were occasional slots and even over slots that I caught mostly after dark. But, once again, less of them than last year.
This all points to a disturbing pattern of less fish with the pressing problem of far fewer schoolies. It does not bode well for the future unless the regulations are tightened.