Striper fishing went from a fabulous April to a mediocre May to an incredibly poor June. I have never seen it this bad at this time of year from shore along the oceanfront and in Narragansett Bay. I still am out just about every evening and trying many different locations to try to find fish, and it's been little or nothing. Many of my diehard friends are all reporting the same poor fishing.
Poor is what's going on yet the reports we see coming out of the papers and magazines paint a rosy picture. Read carefully and you will find that they focus in on large fish being taken, mostly from boaters. They tend to focus on those one or two large fish being reported. Yes, there are pockets of large fish around, but they are few and far between and a lot of effort is going into catching these few big ones, mostly by commercial rod and reelers or by those slugging it out all night, night after night with eels. Overall, there are few slots, very few schoolies and very few blues around right now.
Perfect Storm has led to this.....We are in the midst of a perfect storm causing the poor fishing right now. There is little to no bait around except for sparse schools of micro bait. The abundant sandeels that we saw last year in June that led to great fishing are not around this year. There are few to no pogies in the Bay, thus leading to the exceptionally poor fishing there. Do you think the commercial harvest of them earlier in the spring had anything to do with this? The peanut bunker have not arrived yet. We'll be lucky if they come by in early August. Many cite the extreme amounts of rain we had this spring as the culprit to screwing up the bait situation. Add to all of this a declining striper and bluefish population and you've got a bad mix.
We've seen bad early seasons in the past. For me, the Cape Cad Canal had often come through when fishing turned sour in RI in past years. But, not this year (so far). Fishing has been poor there also, way off compared to past years. I know many fishermen who have been there many times, caught nothing, and they are giving up until they hear something positive. I'm pulling for the Canal to heat up in July. traditionally the best month of fishing there.
So, we are in the midst of generally poor fishing here in RI. With extremely warm weather coming, I hate to say this, but I don't see it picking up anytime soon. But, I plan to keep looking!
