Behold the Blitz

With the pattern shifting towards cooler or just straight up cold nights, bait has begun filtering out of the estuaries and onto the shore front. The waters of Southern New England were already absolutely saturated with small bait and a lot of predators eating them, but in the middle of the month the first batch of albies entered long island sound, peanut bunker, juvenile bluefish, and herring started to leave the tidal creaks, and bass were there to meet them.  Mike Carl and I bounced around spots one morning looking for the hot and heavy bite we knew would be going on somewhere, finding nothing exciting in the first few spots. In the pocket between two jetties at one spot, some bass were occasionally going in on a big school of peanuts, but the ratio point Noah and I coined the " Triple P" or "Predator to Peanut Proportion" was off... too many juvenile menhaden, not enough bass. 

Then, at a spot I'd never really gotten into a good bite in, we walked onto the beach to see a blitz in progress. For the next few hours we had bass working schools of bunker and herring (not sure what species, certainly not Atlantic, possibly juvenile shad or alewives, but definitely not all menhaden). The worked amongst some rocks just offshore and occasionally pushed up into either of two pockets on either side of a rocky point. For a brief time, the were right on the end of the point itself, and from my high vantage point there I could see that there were some proper fish in the mix, 35 to 40 inch bass. Did I spend too much time photographing the action and miss my chance at one of the bigger girls? Maybe. But I don't regret it.

I stood on the point during a lull, casting to the occasional cruising fish in front of me. Then I looked to the pocket to my west and saw whitewater, big slashes, and bait spraying. I took off at a dead sprint down the beach. I got there out of breath, pulled out my camera to get a couple shots. These were larger fish with no tiny ones mixed in. I slipped my camera back into my bag and turned around to see that they were now right in front of me. They stayed in tight in just long enough for me to catch two over 27", not the biggest but the largest bass I'd caught in a while.

We had fish within range on and off right through the middle of the day. It was wonderful. Of course I'm a big fish guy and wasn't satisfied with what I caught, but I was satisfied to have been in the thick of it all. Not that I can afford to be picky really, but I prefer my big bass either blind casting to structure or at night, not from a blitz. That's just me.

Until next time.

Fish for the love of fish.

Fish for the love of places fish live.

Fish for you.

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