I'm starting to believe there's a relationship with the explosion of the Black Sea bass population moving Striped Bass off some of their traditional spots.
Over the last 3 years, Scorton Ledge has become infested with juvenile BSB - and each of these years I've been seeing less and less Stripers there.
We're not seeing a decline in the overall numbers of Stripers at the time of year they usually show up on the ledge, they're just not staging on top of the ledge itself anymore. They now set up in areas close to the ledge, but away from the seabass. These are areas where we didn't really find the stripers before.
The other variable could be the recent change in fishing methods, the "run and gun" eel guys can drive the fish off there. But as much as I hate that type of fishing, My guts says that's not the cause.
Nothing scientific, just observations from being on that area pretty consistently.
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device
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