Early Fall Bay Blitz

How do you describe what happens when the Bay water temps fall to 70 degrees … EPIC!

 

Last Sunday Captains DiPaola and Felker headed out to put some fish in the box.  Word from Anglers Sports Center was that the fishing was good up around Love Point, which a few miles north of the Bay Bridge on the eastern shore.  So our initial plan was to head north.  But as we left the dock around 1000 and entered Whitehall Bay we saw birds working the surface, and decided to stop and at least get the skunk off before we headed north. 

 

(Looking for working birds is the sign during the fall that there’s action going on underneath.  But it’s not just seeing birds work, but the types of birds working, that makes a big difference.  Terns dive for baitfish.  Seagulls, however, are lazy (or efficient), and only dive when they see a sure meal, like pieces of baitfish cut up by blitzing Stripers and Bluefish)

 

Hitting the first school turned out to be a good call, as we immediately tied into a 16 inch Striper.  From there the plan changed, which not only saved us gas, but gave us more time to tie into fish.  For the next 6 hours the action was white hot.  We spent the day chasing schools of 16-20 inch fish, catching at least 25-30 fish over 16 inches, and putting three in the box that all went just over 21 inches.  The fish were hitting underneath on metal jigs, and on top water lures as well.  It was amazing to see 20 inch fish slashing the surface.  We even managed a sea trout on one of the jigs, a first for Mikey D Fishing.

 

Tuesday morning the bite slowed a tad but we (including Joe’s former squadron mate Tom Dougherty still managed a dozen or so Rocks, another sea trout, and two keepers in the box in just under three hours of fishing.  Probably more important was the lesson we got from the WCO who pulled alongside of us to measure our smallest fish.  Normally a cause for irritation, this time the visit from our friendly DNR cop was beneficial.  We had initially measured the Striper at 20 inches, so we were confident it was a good fish.  Turns out we were wrong, but in a good way.  The DNR officer took our fish and put him on the tape.  But then I noticed that he squeezed the tail of the Striper, and actually took the measure from the snout to the tip of the tail.  We had been measuring from the snout to the fork, which would have turned a lot of the 18-19 inch fish that we had netted on Sunday into 20-22 inch fish!

 

Thursday the bite dropped off significantly, as we only netted a couple of fish in the morning.  But we’ll take one slow day for the two great days of action.  Forecast has the bay temps continuing to drop, which according to the experts means the bigger fish are going to be feeding heavily.