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| I landed this decent one a couple of nights ago in a backwater location. Overall, there are a lot less stripers around this year, but there are some quality fish. |
As we head into Memorial Day weekend, the key word to describe the striper fishing here in RI is MEDIOCRE. Spring fishing should be peaking right now, but it isn't. It's easy to blame the weather or blame the lack of bait, but the bottom line overall has been that the numbers are way down this year. No surprise there!
I'm still catching but getting way less than in past years. In places where I would catch a half a dozen fish a few years ago, I am lucky to get one fish. This applies to the many places I have fished in the Bay as well as along the oceanfront from shore. The same results have happened in my kayak fishing. A lot less this year than in other years.
If there is any good news here, it's that there are some decent size stripers around. Roughly half of the stripers that I have landed this spring have been slots. But, once again, the numbers are not there.
The hottest lure for me in the last week or so has been an Albie Snax in a white color and rigged with a BKK Titan Rider Hook (size 5/0). The fish have been fussy, and the Snax has worked better than anything else in my bad of tricks. Easy to fish- twitches of the rod tip and reel in slowly with an occasional stop.
It seems that boaters are scoring much better right now than the shore guys. Their advantage is that they can cover a lot more water looking for fish. Those fishing the Bay and backwaters are also doing better than those fishing out front.
Good luck if you get out this holiday weekend.