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| The Albie Snax was the only artificial that would work last evening. The stripers were on micro bait about a half inch long. |
In the last two evenings I've found huge amounts of bait and big numbers of stripers on them. There were birds diving, schools of fish breaking and individual fish here in there I haven't seen this much surface activity since last fall.
The massive amounts of tiny bait, bay anchovies, has set off a feeding spree along the oceanfront. It's just what we have been waiting for months to happen, and it's here!
Be aware, though, these stripers are tough to fool when they are on small bait. Last night I had schools of fish or individual fish breaking to cast to for 2 straight hours. I ended up with 3 stripers and one more on. Yes, poor results for the amount of fish I saw. My fish were all caught on Albie Snax fished on a deep, slow retrieve. I tried everything in my bag of tricks to imitate small bait- small bucktails, float and fly, Jumpin' Minnow and NLBN paddle tails. Nothing would even get a sniff except the Snax. And, there were times that I threw the offerings into a pile of breaking fish. I can tell you no one else except my son Jon could catch a fish and there were a good number of guys trying.
While I left a few breaking fish at dark, my son Jon stayed. He had live eels in the car. He's had good success fishing eels at night in the past when the fish were fussy and on small bait. It happened again for him. In a couple of hours of tossing the eels, he landed 5 stripers OVER 40 inches apiece along with a breakoff. Those are the most large fish I have heard about from the surf in over 2 months.
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| This is one of 5 big fish over 40 inches that Jon landed after dark on eels. |
The striper action from shore is finally here and here big time. As long as the bait remains the action will continue to be good. Good luck trying to catch them!
