Nighttime is the Right Time

You know summer is here when you can no longer catch a striper in the daytime, especially a sunny daytime. In the last week, I have been fishing evenings into the night in the Bay. The action seems to begin right after sunset and progress into the night. It is a mix of small keeper bass and schoolies.

The hot lures continue to be plastic stick baits. I am using Hogys and my friends who have not discovered these hot lures are using Slug-Gos (see photo at left of fish caught last night). The stripers are also occasionally hitting a teaser rigged ahead of the plastic bait. There continues to be a mix of stripers and bluefish. The blues have been particularly pesty by cutting the plastic. Go to a hard lure and they won't touch it!

Chop can Lead to Big Striper!

The biggest striper we caught from the boat in the Bay last year and this year (see picture) have been caught in the exact same, but strange way. We are drifting a live menhaden. Along comes a big blue and chop, chop, chop. We pull and miss the blue. As the head chunk sinks back, a large striper immediately engulfs the chunk.

The lesson to be learned here is that if a blue comes along and cuts your bait, something that will happen often at this time of year, let the chunk settle back. You can even fish it with a few lifts of the rod. Frequently, large stripers lurk right under the blues just waiting for a free meal.

Blues on the Increase; Stripers on the Decrease

It happens every year in Narragansett Bay around this time. The water begins to warm and larger stripers head to deeper water in the lower Bay. The menhaden are still around, a good bait supply for increasing numbers of bluefish that favor the warmer water.

I have been out the last 4 evenings from shore, boat and kayak. I've also fished various spots....the Providence Shipping Channel, Conimicut, East Greenwich Bay and other upper Bay locations. In every spot, I have found decent numbers of bluefish. East Greenwich Bay had small, cocktail blues in the 12-16 inch range chasing small bait. The Seekonk River in Providence had large bluefish slamming scattered schools of menhaden. In between all this action, there are still some large striped bass to be had (we landed fish up to 35 lbs. this week), but you will go through lots of menhaden that are falling victim to bluefish.

The big blues are hitting menhaden (chunks, whole and dead, and live) while smaller blues will hit poppers, swimmers and plastics.

Vary Your Tactics in the Bay

This is not last year's fishing in 'Gansett Bay.There are less pogies, less large bass and a ton more fishermen, many of whom are clueless. However, the sharpies are still catching good numbers of large bass and blues. Moving around and varying tactics are the key to scoring.

Fishing with live menhaden is still a great technique if you can get a supply of pogies. We've found that it is best to move away from the mob scene of boats when doing this. We've gotten most of our 40-45 inch stripers (see pic of yesterday's fish) drifting live pogies.

Another technique that has worked well is chunking. Find a spot in relatively low water (under 20 ft.), anchor, and start chumming cut pieces of menhaden. This works well when you have a supply of dead ones. I like to use no weight and a relatively small chunk when chunk fishing. Let it to the bottom and bounce it up and down with the rod tip. This has accounted for many bass in the 28-34 inch size range and some big blues.

Finally, don't discount plugging. We were drifting yesterday and suddenly bass and blues were popping here and there for bay anchovies. We started plugging with Hogys and Zara spooks on top and ended up picking up quite a few large blues and small keeper bass.

My brother and I landed 25 fish yesterday and used all of the techniques described above. In the same area we were fishing, many inexperienced boat fishermen went fishless.

Menhaden, Big Bass, 'Gansett Bay

This was the week that the big bass arrived in the Bay for us. Proir to today, we had been catching lots of stripers in the 30-36 inch range from the boat, but today was the first day we were able to catch several fish over 40 inches. The menhaden are arriving in increasing numbers and the bigger fish are after them. Today's trick was patience, finding the big stripers and drifting live menhaden. The bass wanted them on top today.

Prime Time for the Kayak

Kayak fishing in Narragansett Bay is in its prime right now. For the next month, I'll fish more from the kayak than the whole rest of the year.

Things are just right for the many nooks and crannies, backwater coves and rivers of 'Gansett Bay. There are good numbers of 25-30 inch stripers in the Bay right now. There are also various types of prey items around like bay anchovies, silversides, shrimp and even worms hatching. In addition, the water is still cool, mostly in the sixties, and that all means that the stripers are in an active, feeding mood just looking for your offering.

I've been out in the kayak in the last two evenings and I've gotten several keepers as well as some fish just under keeper size. The hot lures have been Hogys in a 6 inch length. Believe it or not, pink was a hot color last night. Zoom flukes twitched on top have also been hot (see photo). I like to use the Super Zoom Flukes in a light color.

Use caution at this time of year when venturing out in a kayak since the southwest wind can kick up in late afternoon/evening and thunderstorms are always a threat on a warm day.

Hogys are Hot

The hottest lure right now in Narragansett Bay is a Hogy plastic lure twitched on the surface. Both stripers as well as bluefish can not pass one up without giving it a crushing blow. I have been out fishing in the last three nights from both shore and boat and caught good numbers of fish on these. I caught numerous large schoolies, several keepers (see photo at right) and even decent sized bluefish (yes, they are in the Bay!)

Hogys are elongated plastic stick baits. They come in a variety of colors and sizes. I especially like the white ones in daylight and a black at night, although the white was producing last night in both daylight and nighttime. This week the 7 inch and the 9 inch skinny Hogy were the best sizes to use.

These can be rigged with Texas style hooks up front. Hogy also sells weighted jigheads, swimming tins and a weighted swim bait hook that has a spring type device to screw into the head of the bait. They also sell large models that are already rigged with tandem hooks.

All these rigged baits are fished the same. You want to reel slowly while twitching the end of the rod tip to give the bait an alluring swimming and darting action. Watch its action in the daylight and you will soon learn how to dance a Hogy. Expect a large striper to interrupt that dance!

For futher information on this lure go to http://www.hogylures.com/.