Tooo Much Bait

[ruge13]

I headed out yesterday morning and last night around 8pm just before dark to my usuall haunts in Boston harbor/logan areas. Usually in Boston harbor you strugle to find bait and I can honestly say usually I never ever see working birds near logan arport. yesterday, different story. There were flocks of turns everywhere, bait everywhere. Peanut bunker at every depth in schools in tens to schools over thousands. I didn;t know where to go, what to do. I saw fish breaking the surface everywhere I went. So I tried to run and gun and wound up breaking a rod tip. So I sent it out this morning and now I am fly rodless for a couple weeks untill. Anyway, Thisis a horrible thing to complain about but the abundance of bait is screwing up my patterns and I can;t find fish where I normally find them. The excess bait is making bass that norally are hidden, feed in broad daylight in shallow water. I don't know what to do....help

[joev]

Shaun Do you spin fish ?
If so throw something big and guady.
Even when fish are keyed in on certain size bait I can usally catch them on a 14 inch tube and worm.

JoeV

[ruge13]

yeah I will be spin fishing for a couple days....I am going to experiment with small repallas for freshwater that resemble peanut bunker, with a light rod I can toss them a decent distance. Then the usuall slug O's, Fin S larger crystal minnows, surface poppers stuff like that. I couldn;t get them to take a fly popper last night when I still had an in tact rod but we'll see.

[Wes]

I always wanted to try a 12 inch striper pattern in the middle of one of those. ;)

Try a swimmer that's a little bigger than the bait or a teaser on a big plug. Sometimes you gotta forget trying to match the bait and just try to get their attention. Tube and worm definitely gets their attention, too.

So how'd that gun and gun stuff work before you broke the rod? Did you figure anything out abt run and gun casting in the yak?

Jim

[ruge13]

Yes watch boat traffic.....for the first time the water was clear in the harbor yesterday and I could watch birds work. I always see Turns flying or perched but never swooping. This was the first day. So I followed that. I was running around near boat channels with alot of traffic, usually getting in the way. I was chasing birds there but I think half the time they were just swooping after boat wakes kicked up peanuts....there were so many a boat could leave lots of stunned bait sitting on the surface. I wasted alot of energy following nothing I think. Try to look for birds away from boats. these are more likely bait pushed up by fish not boat wakes stunning them. At dusk, I could slowly cruise the shore line about 20 ft from shore and watch for fish to hop up out of the water after bait. I would listen paddle slow and drift, when I heard it I paddled like crazy and got a few casts off to the bait ripples...I don;t think it matters now though, I definately wasted alot of energy, there is so much bait around you can pick a spot and blind cast, every time I did that when the fly and line hit the water bait scurried away leaving ripples all over.

[ruge13]

oh yeah, and its not easy to do in a small cockpit Sit it, my line turned into a rats nest by the time I got near anything to cast, so trawl the line if this is a problem, I now have a rod holder so this is eaier for me to do. Before I had to reel in and then strip line off to start casting...way too slow.