[Pharmacyguy]

Originally Posted by zimmy

In my crowd, there are a bunch of guys who have been boat fishing the western sound reefs forever. I have only done it for maybe the last 9 years. Typical May from Hempstead to Norwalk, then later Milford, you would get your bunker, head out to the reefs and regularly catch bunches of nice fish. Chumming and chunking, swimming live, whatever. The last several springs, particularly so in the last two, there were dramatically fewer fish and many skunks. Miles of bunker, followed by miles of sand eels. Five years ago, a skunk was almost unheard under those conditions. The fish went out of Raritan and south or out east, and through the sound toward Rhode Island. To think that the poor fishing north and east is because the fish are hanging off Jersey or are offshore is probably wishful thinking. They used to be in all of those places. It isn't the seals in CT, RI, NH, NC, and most of MA.

I read this several times, big schools of bait this fall with nothing on them. I don't like to use anecdotal evidence but this fall during the derby we witnessed ridiculous amounts of bait on a rocky. "fishy" spot that had nothing on them. I mean bait so thick we turned on our headlamps to see what the noise was and nowhere along that half mile stretch of shore did we witness even some twinks assaulting that bait