Biggest Day of the Year; Sandeel Invasion Fuels Great Fishing

 

Here's a slot fish coming ashore with
my Albie Snax in its mouth.

The striper fishing has taken a dramatic turn for the better for me in June. The sandeel arrival has brought big numbers of stripers to the oceanfront.  The whole month has been productive, but the climax was a couple of days ago when I hit one of the biggest blitzes I have ever seen in June.

It was one of those cloudy, drizzly days with an east wind and a charged up surf with lots of white water. I headed down the oceanfront in late morning, and my plan was to hit a number of spots knowing that the stripers and the sandeels were moving around.  My plan was to hopefully find them. I struck out in the first two locations.  As soon as I got a glimpse of the water in my third location, Holy Smokes!  Stripers were breaking EVERYWHERE in front of me with not another fisherman in sight. Big jumps, small jumps, multiple jumps, out far, in close, bait spraying out of the water. 

It took one cast of my Albie Snax and teaser to hook up with a slot fish.  Next cast I had two good  fish on and one busted off my Albie Snax (why I don't like using a teaser). So, I switched strategies and cut the teaser off and just went with the Snax. The fish continued to feed and hit as the tide dropped, though they were fussier and fussier as the afternoon moved on. Later, I switched to a float and Red Gill, the best producer for these fussy fish that were going crazy in the white water.

This was a very effective lure combo
as the fish turned fussy later in the day.
It's my wooden egg float with a Red
Gill teaser attached off 3 feet of 
Varivas fluoro. Throw it in the white
water and reel it in slowly. Deadly 
when fussy stripers are on sandeels.

That day I fished just about a whole tide from high to low. The action continued till right before dark when everything settled down and died. 

Score for the day- 44 stripers landed, dozens more on.  Most fish were in the 24 to 26 inch range, but I had at least a dozen fish that were slots and over. One of the best June days I ever had.