Stripers & Anglers Education Series: Understanding Spring/ Fall Bass Migration for NJ/NY
2012 Bass Migration
This thread was conceived due to the unusual Winter we had in the NJ/LI area.
We had a series of events which kept bass from their usual migration paths.
I thought some folks would be interested in hearing they Why's and What's that makes this Spring Migration different.
Feel free to jump in with opinions, even if they are different from the ones stated here...:thumbsup:
Or if you have anything you're not sure you understand, feel free to ask...
As always, I'm deeply grateful for the folks along the NE Coast who send me reports, many of which are never posted here. And the daily conversations I have with a circle of Veteran Fishermen, Old-Timers who are obsessive about analyzing the details (Hey, they're retired a lot of them...gives them something to do....:laugh: :HappyWave:)
Regardless... they help I and some others, to get a clearer picture, of Why the fish are Where they are for a particular moment in time....
The feeding window, and what does it mean?
^^Seems the bigger bluefish are staying slightly out of the sandy beach area and have staged just a tad out there where there are now countless grass shrimp, supplemented by rainfish and spearing that just moved in in numbers last week.
Feeding window:
Quote:
Originally Posted by
rip316
We finished up around 230. There were kayaks out there but, where I was there were no guys on the beach. Only three guys wading to the chest deep water about 2 to 300 yards out. They got into them good.
Thanks to Rip for that report. :HappyWave:
I was trying to explain this to someone else yesterday. Hope I didn't get him mad. :) I'm a little intense in my explanations at times. :bonk: There is a definite feeding window when it comes to bass and bluefish. If you are not aware of that you may get skunked and think there are no fish there at all.
Your job as an angler is to figure out what the window is, for that particular place you want to fish.
For bass, the usual window is at night. (for shore bound anglers)
This gets trumped if there are large quantities of bait which spur them to feed in the day (ie blitz action)
For bluefish, this window will mostly exist in the daytime.
Night feeds for bluefish are a whole different ballgame, and really depend on high bait concentrations, pinch points, tides, and current.
For the Raritan bay, the pattern has been that the bottom half of the tide will produce slightly
better bluefish action as the bluefish fill the flats to feed, and then taper off slightly to no action as there is a point after the tide turns when they leave.
As you learn to recognize this, you will learn when to stay and anticipate the action, or when to move on to another area.
Right now, bass are more frequently caught in some Raritan bay areas, near the bottom of the tide.
For those trying to get bass instead of blues, fishing the slack of the ebb, bottom, and bottom of incoming seems to be a good strategy now for northern bay areas.
Same for weakfish, where you will find higher activity around both tide changes.
Yesterday, the only really solid bluefish action (for shore anglers), with double digits being caught by guys who waded out, was toward the bottom of the tide.
There was one other area where they had tremendous action near the top, but that was because some large schools of rainfish moved in, and then the bite became bait-dependent, rather than tide-dependent.
Re: Stripers & Anglers Education Series: Understanding Spring Bass Migration for NJ/NY
Quote:
Originally Posted by
DarkSkies
I encourage all those reading this, to keep a detailed log.
Not only of your catches but of the predator and bait migration patterns.
In time you will see how valuable that info becomes. I was able to zero in on a fantastic herring bite last week because of following such migrations.
Very good advice ds.
Re: Stripers & Anglers Education Series: Understanding Spring Bass Migration for NJ/NY
What would you guys say about the bluefish in this migration? How do they fit into the puzzle. Do they travel together with the stripers? thanks