Essex River - Micro bait??

[PhlieRod]

I was just about to post a question about the Essex River when I read the "micro bait" posting about Plymouth.

We saw the same behavior this weekend in Essex. LOTS of fish around, but feeding VERY selectively on somthing. I spoke to one angler who had good luck tossing half-and-halfs and clousers, which suggests maybe they were keying on small sand eels.

We tried everything - surface poppers, flatwings, clousers (large & small) and even a Crazy Charlie.

Any ideas?

BTW, the greenheads were as bad as I have ever seen them.

[ag1]

There were lots of tiny shrimp in the Merrimack this past week, along with Slug-go sized sand eels. In the past I've had days where the fish were very picky and it seemed to coincide with an abundance of tiny shrimp. They do eat them.

[sgiunach]

Fished the outgoing friday am and found it slow going upriver but the bass seemed to be more cooperative at the mouth/ bay. Castleneck didn't seem to produce but I think it had more to do with the low/slow flow than bait. FYI found birds on small balls/clouds of sand eels off cranes and did well drifting/sight fishing sand bars closer to plum. smaller flatwing up to a 2/0 (monomoy style) was the go to fly. 10-18 in the 24-26 range and 3 28-30. better fish found inside river at the mouth and outside with mostly rats upriver