Bait
 

What are people seeing for bait from Boston and North to the Cape, Rhody, and Long Island?

on the south shore most of the mackerel disappeared a couple of weeks ago unfortunately. in buzz bay and VS most of what im seeing are peanuts, silversides and some bay anchovies

South side mid cape anchovies, I 🤔 think!
Attachment 67322

Sea herring out side along the beach, gannets are having a field day, pogies have left the estuary where they were packed to capacity all spring and summer and are along the beach in small tight schools,( I haven't see a lot of peanuts yet) real hard to find now on a consistent basis.. Mackerel have returned in large quantities in both large and tinker size.. the river is full of herring and shad "rain drop" bait, schoolies are gorging on them, but big fish have disappeared..
the fall eel migration is under way, most of the eels I'm catching are large females heading out to sea, some of their sea run qualities are beginning to show. ( the jaws and fins change for their journey to the Sargasso sea)

still lots of sand eels as well.

Fascinating !

Bump

Now we're asking the right questions! Good to aim the board back
towards striped bass fishing. Trying to choose a good spot for my
annual late September one shot at the fall run, and it really helps
to have some idea what's actually going on out there (without spot
burning, obviously). Really appreciate it, guys!:wave:

Was at the head of the Westport river yesterday small schoolies were putting a beating on small herring or peanut bunker in a 6ft wide channel. near some kayak place

Was in the river today very slow found some albies tight lipped as usual I am batting a big Zero so far but did manage a scup and 6 Squeteague until this year Ive never caught 1 this year its been like 10 go figure ,,

6 Squeets? Awesome ; )

You mean squetties in the Westport river? Wow!

Lookin' like silversides to me Gup.... tell tale is the silver stripe along the body

Similar to Paul, I'm seeing peanuts, bay anchovy and silversides... Wesport to Newport

My pots @ the dock are filled with mummies & silversides while peanys & s/s are getting hammered by skip jacks ><>

You're growing pot on the dock now??? :smokin:
hooooooters - this winter :wave:

don,t wait to winter .either go to Milo,s house or come over here....don,t expect to drive home right away ….long time Gilly :wave:

Thanks, been trying to find an epoxy with a little shrimp (orange) backbone...
A pimple mother of peal been workin for me mostly...

Spearing, aka silversides, aka rainbait.

About two weeks ago I was off the West Wall in a boat and had an Albie spit up what at first I thought was peanut bunker or an anchovy but upon closer inspection turned out to be one inch or so blue fish. Never saw that before. Same day I did see a Sea bass Blitz which was pretty cool.
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They were not big

Still pretty cool, I caught one 9 lbs(it made the cover of the fisherman mag.) in the mouth of the merrimack about 40 years ago when the state tried the coho and king salmon experiment, it hit a orange bomber trolled for those salmon, that is one of the few fish I would actually want to travel to pursue congrats.
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RF9 they still have a descent fishery somewhere along LI <><>

Fished Boston Harbor in a friends boat last weekend and found tons of macks, although we had to move around a little on Sunday to fill the bait well. Only saw one school of big pogies but we weren’t really looking for them.
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made a soco run today...expected to see a lot more bait than I did with ponds dumping on a moon tide...managed an albie but picked it off the bottom early in the am...something that has worked well for me previous years when they aren't showing on the surface in places they should be is getting my lure deep...Hogy Pro tails have worked well also small vertical jigs, today I just let my tin get the bottom started working it up and it was picked up almost immediately, didn't take long to figure out it wasn't a sea bass...saw peanuts mostly but no big schools...whales were just off of Weekapaug which was really cool

Damned if I can tell the difference..
Got this online for anchovy’s
Attachment 67328

Which reminds me, not that we’ve been out to dinner in months but remembering The last several times I asked for anchovy’s on Caesar salad they were white and I think canned in water,,,, what happen to the dark colored ones you could smell across the room?
Killing time while the wife drives over the bridge experience...

Not a bait expert by far, but we used to seine for silversides/spearing...or our generic term, minnows way back when I was child.
As an inquisitive boy, I would try to identify the many different species of fish caught in the net. Dad would deep fry them and we'd eat em' like fries.

The shape of their head may be the better way to distinguish them...although I believe the anchovy has a rounder body as well...

The Milford CT area has more adult bunker than I have ever seen. Everywhere. Lots of peanuts too.

A good buddy called me to fish saturday night....couldn't make it because I had to attend a wedding. He sent me pictures of what I missed out on.....:splat::fishslap: