31" striper

Two straight days of northerly winds scattered the schools of peanut bunker in the river. I went out Sun. morning and scouted from the Sakonnet light back upriver to Portsmouth. I found scattered pockets of bait tight to the shore North of Sandy Point up to Island Park. Roving stripers would sporadically come in and rake these pockets of bait. Got a nice 31" on the fly.

Still carry a flip phone...pictures are more or less useless.

Last evening I went down to third beach in Middletown and found many surfcasters working several schools of breaking fish. I was told that the beach had been lit up daybreak and dusk for the last week. I saw mostly small blues, but they said that sometimes it's all bass.

I went back for sunup this morning and caught four bluefish before my brand new braid birdnested. (I overfilled the spool, I think.) By the time I had it retied it was time to leave for work. I did see one guy down the shore from me land a schoolie striper. The beach is loaded with peanut bunker, and the fish know that they are there.

Friday evening (9/9) got on some big bluefish right off Island Park beach, across from Flo's. They were busting on peanut bunker. Hooked and landed one around 10lb. on the fly. I lost another one +/- 13 lb. at the boat. Quite a fight on a 9 wt., I should have packed a lunch. finished the evening tired, but happy.

Pulled a dawn patrol Saturday and Sunday. covered the whole river from stone bridge to the sakonnet light both days. The river is absolutely loaded with peanuts, but no fish working anywhere either day. My guess is that they were up all night gorging during the calm moonlight both nights.

Got on to stripers at Black point area on Sunday, the 4th. The fish had the peanut bunker trapped up against the shore from Black Point to Big rock at the far end of Vaucluse (the property up river from Black point with the giant open green hayfield). Fish were busting all around the boat for about two hours. Very exciting, but very frustrating, so much bait that it was nearly impossible to hook up. I finally managed to hook and land a nice 25-26" striper on a peanut bunker fly that I tied the night before. Twice, I also saw a cow, (+/- 30 lbs.) follow the fly right up to the boat, then spook when they noticed the boat. At least I did about as well as the spin fishermen on the ten or so other boats around me, throwing everything in the tackle box at the fish. Lots of action all around, not much hooking up.