You can get them pretty early by the dam up between Ho'yoke and S.Hadley. Live line shad in the "hole" and you are all but guarnteed a keeper.

Gonna have to concur with Mid-May to June for arrival, JULY for the Cape Ann BITE, boyz. Will be hittin' the Tree like it waz my job May's new to June's new. The urban rivers of RI as well, oncet the herring starts ta schhhhtack up! Gettin' mighty close now, men! Coupla reliable sources have seen gulls working the NGST R last week. Could be an early one this year fellas? Stay ready:drool: :drool: :drool:

With herring being pushed up in March by Pollock, ya gotta wonder if it may be early for the striped set.

This is from Saturday's GDT

"A Large Pile of Sea Birds"

The falcon eyes of Team Morris - Bob Morris Jr., and son, Bobby III - witnessed another one of nature's marvels while lobstering in Thatcher's Bay off of Rockport aboard their 35-foot Spirit on Feb. 21. "We saw a large pile of sea birds (gulls and terns) in the distance; the sea was fairly calm. Bobby and I wondered what the heck could be on the surface during the daylight. The herring should be below with all this sunlight, and it is too early for mackerel and too cold for stripers and blues," said the senior Morris.

Once on site, the Morrises saw herring scales profusely glittering in the water along with "the black backs of fish darting in a bluefish-like manner, going after the feed. We think these fish were good-size pollock (more than 2 1/2 feet long) that corralled a school of herring right up to the surface," Morris explained.

Spin, I've seen some pretty epic "slammer" Pollock blitzes up here too in early,early spring /late winter's past....

dood- what are ya- naked in them waders??:shocked:

when would you anticipate them being on the bayside of the cape? I'm planning to hit there late april through may. I heard the schoolie action from the beach is great.

20-22 April is when I start catching them in my benchmark location, and picking up from there for the next few weeks. But they are there before. Going to need a boat. Any kind of boat...

I was catching fish at the end of December last year in SoCo that had sea lice. They sure were not migrating so I think the sea lice thing is mostly myth.

"Keeper" bass will be in the Merrimack river by the 20'th of May,Teen sized fish by the end of the Month, first shot of schoolies the first week of May..... If you get the fish on the ocean front they will have lice, if you get them inside the river, the lice will be gone within a few hours of their arrival....

We have this sea lice conversation every year.... IMHO, sea lice indicates a SCHOOL of fish with decent numbers. Usually when I see lice, I am catching just about every cast.