what approach works better? fishing the mouth of the rivers around low hoping to catch bass on the way in or fishing further back in the river at high?

the obvious answer is go find out yer self. which i try to do... but i never catch anything anyway so i can never figure which works better. lol.

Go often. Trade info with other people you meet who go often. Learn the river you want to fish. It is temperature dependant. If the source for a river is ice melt, the 'run' will start later. Some rivers, it's over quickly and some longer. The longer the river, the longer the run. The time frame can be from mid March to mid June and depending on the river, the end time frame is usually the best part. Swimming plugs and soft plastics in the begining and pencils at the end. Look for tribuaries. Look for ambush points, shallow water or rapids, constriction. Generally the fish move into tribs during the flood and out during the drop but if I could go, I wouldn't worry about the 'wrong' tide.

The later it gets, there are more herring that are going out than in. Right now, and for the rest of the month and into early June, we are in the "post-spawn" window. A lot more herring are going rather than coming.
Soooo....you find the river or salt pond opening that leads to the natal ponds, and you fish the outgoing tides. Herring tend to like a lot of water for moving up and down the rivers, I always found that I did better when the rivers were swollen from rain or in the beginning-mid stages of a dropping tide as opposed to the last part of a falling tide.

I fished the mystic river (MASS) last night behind the schrafts building, a guy was tossing treble hooks on a top and bottom rig and snagging herring left and right. This guy buckets of fish. I was tossing some soft plastics next to him. Did not get a bump. Suddenly, this guys rod doubles over damn near to point break. 15 minutes later he pulls in 30 inch bass that he snagged on the tail. The bass are right under the Herring.

good stuff. i've never fished (for stripers) before june before. so i am at a loss here.

I'm sure that you wrote down his boat registration numbers [if in a boat], or his plate # if in a car, and called the EPO. Am I correct?!!! :hang:

I fished the mystic river (MASS) last night behind the schrafts building, a guy was tossing treble hooks on a top and bottom rig and snagging herring left and right. This guy buckets of fish. I was tossing some soft plastics next to him. Did not get a bump. Suddenly, this guys rod doubles over damn near to point break. 15 minutes later he pulls in 30 inch bass that he snagged on the tail. The bass are right under the Herring.

This is for my previous post Which is now below this one. Sorry.