Quote:
Originally Posted by Duke41
I fish primarily around Newport, Brenton Reef around Jamestown and off of Ocean Drive, Seal Rock etc. In the early 2000's I could always find fish doing a little spot hopping. The bay was full of acres and acres of blitzing bluefish. Over the years it has been more difficult to find stripers and most of the blues I see are smaller. Have not seen those types of huge blitz's in 10 years at least. Fishing in the fall we have had some excellent days fishing albies. A couple of times I found mixed schools of allies, bonito and stripers. Those days will go down as the best fishing I have ever had. The bay does seem to be full of bunker and anchovies I figure that has got to bode well for the future. Whales and dolphins off of Narragansett Beach, must be a good sign. Holding on for the future. I will tell you this. I started treating stripers like the valuable game fish they are and releasing 100%. I feel better doing my small part. No judgement though. They do last good for sure.
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Only small bait (small sand eels, bay anchovies) in the Lower Bay throughout the year now. No reason for big fish to hang around, except maybe that jumbo loner feeding on small tog. Come Fall, when the pogies do finally drop out of the Bays /estuaries, the biomass of big bass has already passed by.
Those fish that go ballistic for 3 weeks in the canal...that IS the fall run for MA and most of RI. Once those fish blast through it's a crap shoot where they'll make landfall again, if they even do. Only one push now and then you're targeting small pods of stragglers until the end. It was nice 10 years ago when you could count on at least 2-3 major pushes of fish
It does make for great albie fishing, though, but I want bass from the rocks...