Incredible August Striper Blitzes

 A combination of an extraordinary abundance of tiny young of the year bay anchovies and the relatively strong 2015 striped bass year class has lead to something magical this year: large schools of 20-28 inch bass at the surface gulping down 1/2 inch long bait fish off Eastern CT and RI. These slow moving "rafts" of bass are a sight to behold, and although they can readily be caught, it is far more exciting just to be in them. Watch a marvel of nature unfold around you, a scene that should probably be in one of the Blue Planet documentaries.

I encountered my first raft with Rick on August 6th. I had never seen anything quite like it, and at the time I regretted not doing more to document the event, not knowing that I'd be seeing an awful lot more of this over the coming weeks.

The very next day, Noah an I fished the same general are in kayaks. This put us in a great position to get right on the schools, and me a phenomenal photography opportunity. Sure enough, despite much more difficult conditions for seeing this fairly subtle feeding behavior from a distance, we found one raft, and the results were something out of my wildest dreams.

On August 13th Rick and I ere again fishing together, from the rocks this time, when we encountered this behavior again. A number of schools worked around the peripheries of a bay, occasionally getting within casting range. I found it most remarkable to still be able to see the whole school of bass even when they weren't "up", a dark brown mass slowly moving along.

The following day was, to me, the most incredible yet and one of the most memorable days I've fished. My friend Ian Devlin invited me on a run east to explore a number of possibilities. We set out in the fog just as the sun rose. We heard the bass before we saw them.

Throughout the rest of the day we encountered rafting schoolies in a handful of locations, with multiple large schools up within sight at any given moment. We saw them right up in the rocks along the shore and we saw them in 40ft of water. And we saw them everywhere in between. We caught a handful of fish, but we spent as much or more time just taking it all in.

It's a sight that doesn't get old: an acre of bass, shoulder to shoulder, mouths gulping air almost like a surface feeding carp, eating bait so small it just looks like a sparkle in the water. This is something that was very predictable at Montauk not all that long ago. This late summer has been unbelievable here, and it's not thanks to there being a bunch of strong year classes of bass. The famous blitzes at Montauk yielded bass to 15 pounds. These ones here now might hit 10, and there isn't a significant range of sizes. This is pretty much all one year class of fish. What we would all like be a reliable yearly occurrence is not. The truth is, we need to have a very high standard. We want abundance and vibrance, not just existence. Public hearings have been scheduled on ASMFC's Atlantic Striped Bass Addendum VI. (www.thefisherman.com)
Go. Speak up for abundance, and a vibrant fishery. We owe it to these fish and ourselves.

Until next time.

Fish for the love of fish.

Fish for the love of places fish live.

Fish for you.

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