On the Board in '12

[b.clancy]

Poked around my new home environs today on foot in BB. Consulted some charts and found a decent looking area where the depth drops off fairly close to shore. I guessed this might be a good spot around low tide. Either my guess was good or I got very lucky. Landed about a dozen schoolies. My 1st of the year was the smallest bass I've ever seen, maybe 6". Most fish were 12-15", biggest 18-20". Most were covered in lice.
Bob

[Tin Boat]

Where are these very small bass coming from?

Most of them are not big enough to have left the Chesapeake.

The Hudson?

Delaware Bay?

The Connecticut River?

Has anyone caught a tagged small striper this spring?

Whatever the source, the huge influx of small schoolies has been a marvelous gift and a source of optimism about the future.

[b.clancy]

Not sure. Same thought occurred to me. I initially thought the tiniest one must be a recent vintage of holdover fish, so I scrutinized it and it was covered in lice. So it came in recently from the ocean. Hard to imagine it could have made it all the way from Chesapeake.
Bob

[bucko]

A couple of weeks ago I caught a number of small fish. A few had lice but almost all of them were quite dark colored accross the spine. The dark color I'm told indicates the fish came from deep water maybe holes.... possibly hold overs. All the fish were healthy looking...an encouraging sign.

[swirlnbump]

I found and endless supply of 10-16" schoolies in a southside estuary yesterday, most did not have lice. Only when I deviated from the trough I was working did I find larger fish with lice. Very happy to see so many micros, I figured they just held over.