Wading and Bait

[bucko]

In the area’s I wade and fly fish from Weymouth to the Upper Cape I didn’t see as much bait last year as in past years.

Early last year I saw silversides but not particularly large schools. Later in the year the beaches and estuaries had schools of sand eels but not in abundance. Awhile back it was not unusual to see people raking for sand eels but not last year. Occasionally I’d see ‘Rain Bait”. The fall peanut bunker blitz’s never happened for me… maybe it happened in other areas but I’m not aware of it.

What type of bait are you seeing in the areas you fish and in what quantities? Generalizations are fine— this isn’t science just anecdotal information.

[3-Cs]

In past years, we would enjoy a blast of peanut bunker in late August early September, but my logs indicate that there have been few peanuts along Plum Island for several years.

The principal baitfish continues to be huge schools of small sandeels, with the occasional explosion of tinker mackerel coming through, providing an alternate food source for the bass and bluefish.

Bunker and baby bunker are at best, scarce up here now, as are bass under 22" . . they just aren't around like they were 5-10 years ago.

There are silversides further upriver, . . but Joppa and downriver is dominated by sandeels.