North Shore Stripers Improve

Today was all about the race to 40 . . . . 

I fished Little Neck Bay today with Eric Harrison. 

I didn't make it to 40 stripers, but did catch 37, including 2 legal sized fish at 28" and 29", and one other that was 3/4 inch short . . . . as usual, Eric outpaced me and caught somewhere between 45 and 50 bass. We were once tied at 28 . . . . but then he took off with a flurry of stripers on his Hogy. Big surprise there. Eric is one of the best fishermen on the planet and I learn much every time we fish together. 

I've never had much success using plastics on the north shore flats, but this was an eye opener. A 6" slim hogy on a 3/8 ounce head being twitched through the flats is a killer presentation. I'm going to give it a shot the next time out. 

I caught my fish twitching rapalas. A straight retrieve didn't work as well today, unless it was slow. Sometimes, the retrieve needed to be varied. 

We launched at 10:30 am. By this time, there wasn't much water in the bay, since high tide was 2:05 pm, but we pushed back. We started fishing in 4' but weren't catching anything, so we moved up on the flats to 2'. Well, the bass were holding shallow and we started to pound them there, catching striper after striper. 

The fish spread out a little with the rising tide and moved slightly deeper, and pods kept moving around the flats chasing silversides. Periodically, the stripers would push them to the surface, so we knew they were looking up. If there was a lull, action would start again as soon as we marked the little pods of baitfish on our fishfinders. Occasionally, pods of bass would move under our boats as well, which is unusual for shallow water, so we knew there a good number of fish around.  

The bite was good until high-tide slack and the fishing became a pick. We caught a few more, including a 28" for me at the very end. That last fish was caught on the dropping tide after a big period of inactivity. 

Two of the highlights of the day: 1) when the 28" I caught exploded on my plug as I was about to lift to re-cast - it happened so fast I thought that the striper missed it - the water went dark and my plug was gone, but when I reeled in the slack, the striper was there and running under the kayak 2) while twitching my rapala, I got a hard hit - I knew it was a nice fish that hit it, but the line went slack, and I thought I had lost it. Much to my delight, the fish was moving towards me, so I reeled in my slack and horsed him in. 

No less that a dozen other kayakers out there today, and everyone was catching. 

The uptick in the striper fishing may keep me off freshwater for a little while.