Rip Stripers All Morning

After the previous striper outing, I stayed with Mark and his wife Diane at their place in Rhode Island so we could fish again the next morning. Initially we went out looking for bonito. Finding none, stripers became the plan B. We found obliging schools of fish in the same rip that we've had exceptionally consistent action at this year. Fish were popping up there with regularity. Wind direction made the drifts difficult but we were able to set up enough good drifts to have fairly consistent action with 16-25 inch bass. 

I switched flies regularly, I tend to do so when a bite is lasting a while, looking for exactly the right combo. I caught fish on this day on Clousers, poppers, and a Game Changer. Though I can't remember exactly all the flies Mark and Diane fished, I know one was a squid and it worked well. I settled in with he Game Changer because it is a perfect action fly, I think it has the potential to pull bigger bass out of the small fish, and the size of the one I fish tends to result in fewer hookups on little fish. I'd prefer not to hook stripers under 20 inches most of the time. That may sound like pickiness, and in part it certainly is. The real reason is that I'd prefer not to catch and damage as many small stripers. It's the same reason I switched from an 8wt to a 10 wt for the bulk of my saltwater game fish targeting. I'd prefer to exhaust fish less, to minimize my impact.

It is important to not that this has been a good season in that spot but slow in many others that historically had tons of sizable bass. In recent years the fishery has been dominated by concentrations of fish in certain areas rather than widespread activity. This makes networking problematic, because we as a society are much more connected than we ever were before. It is easy to ruin a good thing. It's why I'm careful with how I frame photos and what I describe of a location. With striped bass getting concentrated in smaller and smaller areas it is too easy for people to pile into the "good" areas as word gets around, and there really aren't many good fish outside the hot spots so those places get really crowded. So hold your cards close. Be very careful who you tell about a bite.

Eventually the sun did come out, the tide did start to slack, and the bite slowed and died there. We found a good calm spot to eat lunch before heading in. There were a ton of needlefish by the marina so we tried to mess with them a bit, as I still haven't caught one, but we weren't successful in getting any to hold on. I definitely need to figure those little buggers out!