Following the Silversides this past week

Patterning Stategies

Date: July 30, 2007 at 23:18:44
From: Mark, [ool-182defc6.dyn.optonline.net]
Subject: Following the Silversides this past week

It appears that many areas in the NE have an abundant amount of silversides. A place I like to fish often is thick with 3-5-inch silversides. The problem there is the water temperatures are too high to attract stripers. Only a few small frisky shad seem to hang around and feed on all this bait. The water temperature is around 78 at night. However, the silversides are everywhere and the best chance for stripers is in the cooler water near the inlet that is can only be accessed by boat. Last Wednesday I took the skiff to a spot near an island that was loaded with silversides and stripers, blues and fluke. I missed out on the action but I saw the bait. It was chock full. I was told the chew was on for most of incoming.
I came back the next day for the last hour of incoming and found the bait but no fish. So I moved around and eventually found bait and fish in a channel further east in water temperatures of 66-69. I took a number of stripers that were all 23" on a 7-inch L&L from 6:30-7:30pm. The next day I waded the warm water at the point at 7:30 pm for a couple of hours to make sure the stripers weren't there and I was right and I took one shad. The full moon was blotted out by heavy clouds and a passing storm made the bay flat. It was dead. Saturday I returned to the channel by boat and took 4 stripers of the same size on the same L&L. I tried to fish the same spot on Sunday but in the morning from 7 am but the fog was way too thick and didn't go away and the fog remained through sunset. I returned tonight at 8 pm for the very end of incoming again with the highest tide according to the charts hoping the pattern had not changed and sure enough this time the stripers were in two schools 200 yards apart in the channel busting the surface on the silversides. I took a number of fish and dropped more due to line problems. Interestingly, tonight there was another boat enjoying the bounty with me. The other times I was alone. I can only guess that most have given up on stripers right, you know duldrums and all. There were some good fights when the current was strong. Once the current dropped off the stripers basically cooled off. I took one more near a flat during slack, then the snappers moved in.
It is very exciting to simply follow the pattern. And even though there was a big rain storm on Saturday it didn't affect the pattern. I think this was due to the lack of wind during the storm and the barometric pressure didn't change much and in fact has continued on a downward trend since last Wednesday. The only bad event was lifting a striper into the boat by the leader and having it snap under the pressure causing me two loose two nice L&L Specials, one using chartreuse polar bear for the wing. I will not use that brand of line ever again. I have had too many popped leaders using it. Bring on the menhaden.

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Follow Ups:

Re: Following the Silversides this past week merch 31-Jul-2007 21:02:10 (1)

Re: Following the Silversides this past week Mark 01-Aug-2007 08:02:32 (0)

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