Striper Talk Striped Bass Fishing, Surfcasting, Boating - View Single Post

numbskull · 11-10-2016, 07:18 AM

Incredible numbers of small striped bass around this fall.
I can't recall anything like it.

Vineyard sound (west side) from Falmouth to Nashawena is paved with them working over small bunker.
By this I do not mean just migrating schools of fish. Rather the entire shore to 1/4 mile out is full of fish, like one big school extending over 10 miles. You can stop anywhere, even a place that looks dead, throw a cast in any direction and pretty quickly find fish. From shore, when I've walked my dog in the am this past week I often can go 10-12 casts before failing to hook a fish. There are bigger fish around but avoiding the mini-fish long enough to find a big one is hard.

Bodes well for future fishing (although in truth many of us will be gone before these fish reach trophy class). I also expect that their abundance will be used as justification to lower commercial size limits once the existing quality fish have been finished off. Still, it is encouraging to see and will likely offer lots of fun fishing with downsized tackle in the near term.

11-10-2016, 07:18 AM	#1
numbskull Oblivious // Grunt, Grunt Master iTrader: (0) Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: over the hill Posts: 6,682	Small fish Incredible numbers of small striped bass around this fall. I can't recall anything like it. Vineyard sound (west side) from Falmouth to Nashawena is paved with them working over small bunker. By this I do not mean just migrating schools of fish. Rather the entire shore to 1/4 mile out is full of fish, like one big school extending over 10 miles. You can stop anywhere, even a place that looks dead, throw a cast in any direction and pretty quickly find fish. From shore, when I've walked my dog in the am this past week I often can go 10-12 casts before failing to hook a fish. There are bigger fish around but avoiding the mini-fish long enough to find a big one is hard. Bodes well for future fishing (although in truth many of us will be gone before these fish reach trophy class). I also expect that their abundance will be used as justification to lower commercial size limits once the existing quality fish have been finished off. Still, it is encouraging to see and will likely offer lots of fun fishing with downsized tackle in the near term.