Big Waves Have Changed the Fishing

I landed 5 schoolies today in multiple spots.
There were no concentrations of fish along
the oceanfront in the places I fished.
 Fishing has cooled after the
big waves of the past week.

Huge waves from Hurricane Maria have been battering the oceanfront for the last week.  Prior to that the fishing was very good.  There were lots of false albacore, good numbers of stripers and increasing numbers of bluefish along with a lot of bait. That great fishing has changed for the worse.
I fished the oceanfront today and my son Ben has been fishing it for the last two days. Ben got three schoolies yesterday afternoon and caught nothing this morning.  I got 5 schoolies this afternoon/evening while fishing in multiple spots.  There were no concentrations of fish anywhere.
I saw no bait, no birds working and no fish breaking.  Realize, too, I was fishing some great water.  It was clean and it was rough, the type of conditions that would appear to be a sure bet for big numbers of fish.
I also saw no albies breaking.  While I don't think they have all left, I think their numbers have really dwindled as big storms tend to move them out. I'm sure you will see some small pods of them here and there in the next couple of weeks but the big blitzes of a couple of weeks ago seem to be a thing of the past.  Let's hope I am wrong.
So, we are in a post storm lull right now.  Rest assured there are a solid two months left to the fishing season and things should perk up in the coming days as bait streams southward.

Photo of the Day....Bay Blue

Surf too big and unfishable along the oceanfront?  Not so in the Bay.  It was flat
as a pancake tonight, and the blues were on the feed!

Too Big to Handle

The waves in the last two weeks have been big thanks to Hurricane/Tropical Storm Jose.  But, what I saw today was the biggest and most dangerous surf I have seen in the last month. I don't say this often, but the oceanfront was unfishable today.  I checked out a number of spots and found waves up to 15 feet overwhelming some shorelines. I saw huge waves going right over the east and west walls.  The DEM closed off the east wall due to dangerous conditions.  I saw monstrous waves going right over the big rocks in front of Hazard and Newton Avenues in Narragansett. I thought I'd be smart and hit the Short Wall at Galilee, a protected spot.  No dice as waves were engulfing the front of that wall. From Galilee, I could see waves washing over the inside of the West Wall as well as going over the outside of the West Wall. The next two days are supposed to be even worse due to the northward track of Hurricane Maria. You get the picture....dangerous and unfishable in most RI oceanfront locations.
I'm off to freshwater or possibly the Bay for the next couple of days.

Stripers/Blues on the Rampage

Some decent blues were in the mix
today as this happy angler landed
a beauty.

It was another wild day of fishing for me along the RI oceanfront.  I found an area of the oceanfront that had rough, but clean white water, ideal conditions for stripers.  In front of me the surf line was black with bait...all peanut bunker. There were vast schools of them that just kept moving along.  For hours, the stripers and blues were rampaging through the bait, often blasting it into the air.  In the mix were some albies though I could get none to hit.

Landed this keeper bass along with a lot of
schoolies on the float and jig rig.

The stripers and blues were in the hitting mood as they jumped all over my float and jig rig. At the end of the rig I was using a white, homemade flathead bucktail jig with a three inch plastic curly tail added. Flathead jigs are great imitators of peanut bunker.
For the afternoon, I landed 32 stripers with most of them schoolies in the 20-25 inch range.  I also had one small keeper.  In addition, I landed 3 bluefish which doubled my total from shore for the year (yes, so far there have been very few).
The big issue today was finding clean water.  Much of the water along the oceanfront is dirty with sand and weed.  In some places, a sand line extends up to half a mile off shore. But, if you can find that clean water along with bait, you most likely will find a lot of stripers and blues and maybe some albies.

Photo of the Day- "Jose Lights Up the Fishing"

Holy Smokes! Can you beat that? How about one keeper after
another in one of the biggest daytime blitzes of big fish I have EVER seen.
The winds from Jose were howling, the rain was coming down and the current
was tearing. And, the fish were on the rampage. I've seen it many, many times
where a stormy event will just light up the fishing as it did today!  

Really Rough and Really Good

This happy angler landed this albie on his very
first cast this morning on a float and fly.

The hurricane/ tropical storm waves are rolling in along the oceanfront.  I've seen some giant waves in the 10 foot range pounding the shore. Under those conditions, the fishing usually would not be good. But, the albie fishing in the rough water has been lights out for the last few days.
Mornings have been phenomenal, and I have seen some mornings like yesterday where maybe 150 albies were landed where I was fishing. Reports are also coming in up and down the RI oceanfront of fantastic albie fishing where fishing is possible.
This morning I saw another all out blitz as fish were breaking for hours in a mile long stretch as the fish were in a frenzy feeding on bay anchovies and peanut bunker in the turbulent water. Luckily I was on a safe, high rock, I landed ten of them on the float and fly in about two hours of casting. However,  I know of two other fishermen who got knocked over from the force of the waves this morning.  So, if you dare go out fishing in this weather, do it in a safe location. It's not worth a serious injury (or even worse) for a fish.
With even rougher conditions expected for the next two days along with a driving northeast wind, I suspect the fishing will head downhill real fast.  As the day wore on today, the water was getting rougher and dirtier, a sign of things to come in the next few days.

Conditions in the last few days were about as extreme as it gets, but the fish
were around in big numbers.

Big Time Albie/Striper Blitz

It was a blitz to remember today as albies and stripers hit the shore in force in a spot I was fishing.  It was all set in motion by some rough water and big schools of peanut bunker. The albies were blitzing out a ways from shore smashing through the schools of bait while the bass were tight to the rocks in the white water just whirling and picking off the small bunker close to the rocks.  This went on for hours.
Meanwhile, a picket fence of fishermen quickly developed, and at times just about everyone was hanging on to a bent rod and a screaming drag.  I must have seen about 150 albies landed today, phenomenal numbers from shore.  I landed 8 of them and had an equal number on and lost.  Add to that six stripers including one keeper that I landed. My sons, Ben and Jon (in photos), also landed a load of albies and stripers.
I was using my float and fly rig  to catch the albies. For the fly I was using a homemade Deceiver with a chartreuse hackle tail and that seemed to be very effective. I also saw a lot of fishermen hooking up with metal like Deadly Dicks and Kastmaster XLs. A real hot number all week has also been the Hogy Epoxy Jigs, which scored a lot of fish today.
I will also tell you that the ocean was very rough today with building seas.  If it gets a bit rougher, it will be unfishable in the location I was fishing.  With the forecast calling for crazy wave heights in the next few days due to Hurricane Jose, the albie fishing will almost certainly be put on hold.

The stripers were running with the albies today.  This keeper was one of a
dozen stripers my sone
 Ben and I landed.