So, I had a good visit with my dad this past week. We fished thur/fri and did alright thursday... friday was down right tough.

We found some nice schoolies in boston harbor and had some fun on light tackle. Not alot of surface activity, but we found fish in some rips and rocks. We found some pollock and live-lined them in some good areas. Despite a few runs, we didn't hook up.

We got 21 fish thurs (I kicked his butt... 17-4, he was rusty and lost a few), just one 30" keeper, but alot of solid mid 20" schoolies. Friday we managed just 12 fish and half of those were pretty small. Dad did edge me out, 7 to 5.

We had a good time as we always do... but fishing was definitely slow.

Anyways, the purpose of my post was to see what you guys generally think about cold fronts and stripers. I fished freshwater bass alot growing up and fronts always affected the fishing, sometimes for days.

Thursday (sorry, that was wednesday night) night we had a large front come in and friday was classic blue bird sky post cold front conditions. We don't talk alot about how it affects stripers... or maybe we do and I'm not paying attention.

I've heard alot of good reports and have experienced some darn good fishing right before and during the onset of the front... usually in a storm. This was similar in freshwater fishing. I think that part of things has been discussed. I've had arguably my best schoolie and eelin' day/night right in the middle of a northeast blow. I'm more talkin' about the aftermath.

How do you guys feel about post cold front fishing?

I'm starting to believe that like fw bass, stripers get inactive and you have to fish really slow and small (baits). Or get a live bait right in front of them... But the change in barometric pressure would be felt by any fish, lake, river or ocean.

Fishing definetely quieted down since friday. I do all my fishing in the ledges off of Cohassett. Last Thursday I caught 1/2 dozen good fish (biggest was 34" smallest about 28". Fishing results were similar earlier in the week. This past weekend, however, was a different story. Saturday I caught about 10 fish only 1 was a keeper (30") the rest were real small. Sunday and this morning I caught alot of fish but all were extremely small - no keepers! It seems like the big fish have moved on. Could it be directly related to the front?? I don't know.

I think they fish react to barometric pressure changes but not to short lived cold fronts in mid june.

I had a tough fishing trip Saturday morning in the shallows. Only a couple of bumps with no hook-ups. I switched to trolling deep and got some quality fish before I had to leave, 1 was 29" and 1 was 35" and some others. They were not active at all in shallow water, I was glad I brought the trolling outfits.

Theres a good article in The Fisherman(June 10) about this subject. The basic theory in the article was when the barometric pressure is dropping, there is less pressure on the fishes' swim(air) bladder, causing it to expand. This causes discomfort in the fish and turns them off from feeding. When the front passes, things stabilize and the fish begin to feed aggressively again. Also, the fish can sense the approaching front and will feed aggressively before the front moves through in anticipation of the discomfort to come. That explains the great fishing before a front moves in.

That is interesting Scotch, I'd never heard the physical explanation to why fish are affected by the change in pressure. That makes sense though.

I'd had someone I was talking to about this suggest that a lake or river is a closed environment and would be more affected by the cold front. But its not the temp, its the barom pressure... so I see no reason that fish in 5 to 15 feet of water would not be affected.

Anyway, that front came thru on wed night, (I mistakenly typed thursday) and the temp dropped over 30 degrees and stayed for a few days, so it was a pretty significant event.

I know that alot of things can affect the fishing, especially short term. Fish move around alot, etc etc. But the fishing was slow, and the fish we found were not aggressive. Just wondered if others thought that was a factor.

Thanks for everyone's input.

If pressure change is a trigger, the fish should start biting. This site shows a 3 hour sea level pressure change and NE is starting to drop.

http://moe.met.fsu.edu/usstats/pchstats.html