bdowning
06-30-2000, 02:38 PM
Lots of stripers and loads of sand eels on the flats early this AM. But most of the striper schools I saw were in shallow water, very picky, and easily spooked. Almost like the videos you see of tailing bonefish grubbing for bait. Many sand eels were driven right up on the dry, exposed flats.
It took me a while to figure out that the best retrieve was none at all. Just let the fly swing around and sit motionless on the bottom for a minute or two. Eventually I'd feel a very soft tap on the fly and raise the rod tip to hook the fish. I wasn't fishing bait, and yet that was sure what it felt like! Strip and hand over hand retrieves were not as effective.
Still, I only wound up with a few to 25 inches and really had to work for them. There very well could have been bigger ones around, but I couldn't get a decent viewing angle to really tell.
Later in the AM, I checked out Sesuit jetties. Lots of nano bass near the pots at the end of the jetty obliged on small swimming plugs and sluggos, the very offerings that were completely ignored on the flats. Breaking fish about 200 ft offshore, that may have been blues.
-bd
<img src="http://world.std.com/~bdowning/fishing_lg_wte.gif">
It took me a while to figure out that the best retrieve was none at all. Just let the fly swing around and sit motionless on the bottom for a minute or two. Eventually I'd feel a very soft tap on the fly and raise the rod tip to hook the fish. I wasn't fishing bait, and yet that was sure what it felt like! Strip and hand over hand retrieves were not as effective.
Still, I only wound up with a few to 25 inches and really had to work for them. There very well could have been bigger ones around, but I couldn't get a decent viewing angle to really tell.
Later in the AM, I checked out Sesuit jetties. Lots of nano bass near the pots at the end of the jetty obliged on small swimming plugs and sluggos, the very offerings that were completely ignored on the flats. Breaking fish about 200 ft offshore, that may have been blues.
-bd
<img src="http://world.std.com/~bdowning/fishing_lg_wte.gif">