Spring Striper Run is On

Went out a few times over the Last week and the stripers are active. I caught fish from mid bay to upper bay. There's a mix of bait they are feeding on but it's mostly small bay anchovies. When they're on the small stuff they can be fussy. The only thing I found effective was a 3" cocahoe in either white or white with a blue back with a 3/8 oz jig head retrieved slowly. You have to practically hit them on the head but be patient they will take it. Search for birds working the bait and the bass will be under them. They are also pretty boat shy so sneek up on them from up wind with the motor off, if your lucky the bait will use the boat for cover. Check out the video compilation below.

The Spring Striper Run has Started

April 17-April 22

Earlier in the week (April 17) I went down to the coast to do some casting in hopes of bagging a few fish. Caught 4 one evening and another 10 a few days later. Seems there’s quite a few schoolies showing up along the coast, they’re generally small but a lot of fun. A 10lb test class outfit along with 3/8 oz jig head and a white/glow cocahoe seem to be what they want.

April 23 Striper madness II (“Kind of”)

Tried to take the boat out earlier in the week but I had technical difficulties with the new Mercury from Bass Pro. So I called Robert Pospisil (Service manager Bass Pro Shops foxborough RSPospisil@basspro.com , 508-216-2671) and they got me in right away and rectified the problem. Those guys are awesome!!! After picking up the boat I figured I’d go out for a shake down run just to make sure everything was in working order. I didn’t really expect to catch much since the water hasn’t been consistently over 50 degrees, but I needed to break in the new motor anyway. So I called my brother David and we took some rods for the heck of it. Stayed in the upper bay casted around and puttered around for an hour or so then BAM!!! Stripers every cast we even had a few doubles. After about 2 hours of nonstop catching (not fishing) we had about 35-40 schoolies a piece that’s about 80 fish total. Most of the fish were small (17-20 inches) but for this early in the year it was really unexpected and a lot of fun. By the way we were the only boat out there. Most of the fish were also very fresh looking I doubt they were hold overs. They initially hit cocahoes and zoom flukes but they turned fussy and would only take the zoom fluke. We used a 10 lb class outfit with a 3 inch cocahoe or zoom fluke in white/albino and a 3/8 oz jig head. Click on the video below:

The real striper madness II (Prediction) See early May post Last year

Ok here it goes I just checked the NOAA data and the mid bay water temp is flirting with 50 degrees. There’s also a big tide this Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. It’s possible the big mid bay blitz could start one of these days. If it doesn’t I pretty sure it will start within the next few weeks. Everything along the coast and in the upper bay has been early by 7-10 days this year, probably due to the warmer than usual weather. If this trend keeps up the mid bay should explode soon. I know I’m going to be looking for it to happen soon and when it does I’ll be there. Those early season mid bay fish are respectable usually 25-35 inches and there only around for about 2 weeks so get ready.

Time to get Ready for the Early Spring Striper Run

Every year sometime in the first week of May the spring run hits hard. It’s not unusual to catch 30 stripers or more in a day(Check out last Mays post Striper Madness). The fish usually range from 25-35 inches. I really have a blast using my 12lb test outfit on these fish. So dust off the rods, clean and lube the reels, respool the line. You’ll also want to get the boat ready. I usually check everything out to make sure I’m ready to roll then I take the boat out for a shake down run in mid to late April. I know to some this may be a bit early but the early spring run only lasts for about 2 weeks so you want to be ready to fish hard.

Equipment:

I usually take two 12lb test class rods and a 40lb test powerpro spooled beef stuck. If one of the 12 lb class rods has a problem I can switch fast to a rod that’s already rigged. There’s nothing more aggravating than sitting in the middle of a huge school of frenzied Striped bass with a loop in your line. Last year the bail broke on one of my rods while I was in the middle of a fishing frenzy. If I didn’t have that second rod my day would have been done. The reason for 12lb test class outfit is its fun and the fish are usually on really small bait so you have to use small lures and a 20lb class rod and up just cant cast that stuff.

As for the beef stick, sometimes you need to bounce a jig off the bottom and powerpro has incredible feel when you have a lot of line out. The jigs are also pretty big 2-4oz to get down deep so a strong rod is in order.

Lures:

The last couple of year’s cocahoes with a 3/8 oz jig head tied directly to a 15 lb test fluorocarbon shocker have been deadly. But in other years 3-4” wild eye shad in blue have been very effective. Stripers can be very fussy so I usually bring tons of plastics with many different jig head combinations.

Conditions:

Ok here it is- water temp above 50 degrees, big moon tide, cloudy foggy semi stormy weather. If you get all these lined up the first week of May get ready it’s going to be crazy. Even sunny weather will produce if the temp and tide are there. Early morning appears to bet the best with the exception of cloudy rainy weather. Check out the NOAA data on the left column I usually print out the tide oscillation chart for early May then just watch the weather and temp.

So get ready the spring striper run is just around the corner. Come back to the site and check up on updates. I’ll be back with more info the last week in April unless something happens sooner.

Winter Cod Fishing is hot

A couple of weeks ago a friend of mine and I decided to go have a bite to eat. We stoped at a friends restaurant Pizzarelli’s in Woonsocket. We know Luca, the owner and he knows how much we like to fish so he came out from the kitchen and asked us if we wanted to go cod fishing the next day. Well we’re not really big cod fishermen so we thought he was pulling our leg. Cod fishing in the middle of the winter what’s up with that? He went on to tell us a friend of his from New York has a charter boat operating out of snug harbor and they were making a killing on Cod. I was a bit perplexed since I had never fished for cod in the middle of winter so I politely thanked him for the offer and declined.

The next day Luca calls me and tells me he caught a ton of cod, some as big as 25Lbs. So I told Luca to have the charter captain email me here’s what he sent:

The ISLAND CURRENT III has been winter CODFISHING daily at 4 AM from its winter berth located in Snug Harbor, RI. The cod fishing has been super with limit catches frequently being reached. Our largest codfish to date is 33 pounds caught by Paul Chung from Flushing, NY. We supply everything onboard at NO additional charge. A special $10 off coupon can be used when purchasing from ZERVE at 212.209.3370 or online at http://www.islandcurrent.com/. Always use the ticket code RI COD in order to receive your discounts.

Captain Chris tells me that they will be cod fishing from snug harbor until the end of March. So if you’ve got the itch to go and catch some fish check out their web site or send him an email at captchris@islandcurrent.com. Go to the site and check out catch of the week. They also have a fishing report section and, they limited out the boat on January 31. Looks like I’m going to be trying some winter cod fishing soon. Geez you learn something new everyday.

How to fish videos

My Brother(David Pickering www.ristrpedbass.bolgspot.com) and I are thinking of producing a series of how to fish videos. We were wondering if anyone would be interested. We have a pretty good catalog of videos and we'd cover a variety of boat and shore fishing techniques for striped bass, blues, fluke, black sea bass, bonito, false albacore etc.... We would like to get a scene of how many people would be interested in purchasing how to fish videos and what topics you'd like to see. We're looking at costs and we think we could probably do them for under $8.00 per DVD. But we need to get an idea if it's worth the attempt. So if think you'd be interested in purchasing a how to fish video in the future send us an email at: nbfishing@cox.net .

Take a look at this small sample and let us know you'd be interested.

Highlights from last Year's Fishing

I've put together a series of slides on you tube from last year's fishing trips. There's some early season schoolies as well as some big stripers caught while live lining. Just press play and enjoy the show. Hope you like it.