Labor Day weekend is here and there are sure to be a lot of fishermen out and about along the oceanfront. If you are fishing from shore the outlook is poor.  From a boat you have a much better chance at finding something although that action is also slow. We are coming off the worst year of striper fishing in the summer from shore in DECADES here...

Small bonito were harassing small bait  yesterday. They have been popping up here and there along the oceanfront where bait shows up. Yesterday for the first time I saw lots of bait.  From my vantage point I could see multiple schools of bait way out being harassed by birds from the top and predators from below.  It was small bait which I suspec...

I found good numbers of stripers yesterday evening in some white water. This one was taken on a large bucktail jig with a pink jig strip added.  I feel like the fishing is perking up slightly. I've been seeing some micro bait here and there especially in the backwaters in the last week.  I even found some fish breaking a couple of nights back.  Ye...

Hurricane waves are pounding the coastline right now making for impossible fishing in many of the east and south facing shorelines.  I went down yesterday and found massive waves just running right over the east and center walls at the Harbor of Refuge.  The water was also all roiled with sand and weed making for impossible and dangerous conditio...

The bucktail jig fished off a float was the hot lure yesterday.  The best pattern for me all summer was to hit the shore in rough and stormy conditions.  Those days would produce some resident fish. Yesterday was no different except for one exception. I found good numbers of fish for the first time this summer. It was really rough yesterday due...

It was the surprise of the evening. I landed this monster blue while casting for stripers. It was a loner the only fish of the evening. It fell for a bucktail jig with a pink jig strip.

The fish is in one hand and the white Slug-go is in the other. Slug-gos were my best lures on this day.  I changed tactics this week as I headed north to come cooler water in the hopes of finding more fish.  I did find some in cloudy and drizzly conditions.  I knew from past years that those stormy days tend to perk up the fishing in the dead of s...

The NLBN 5 inch paddle tail has been a good lure for me this week and has  caught most of my fish. This slot fish was landed in some very rough churned  up water. There was an uptick in the fishing this week.  While the numbers of stripers is still dreadfully down for shore fishermen in RI I was able to come up with at least some fish on every o...

I landed this 20 lb. carp this morning. The carp  fishing has been as hot as the weather in the  last few days.  Well the weather is certainly hot.  Wish I could say the same for the striper fishing. However I do know a fish that just loves this hot weather and is hitting well right now.  Carp have always been my ace in the hole that can bend a ro...

I fished the last couple of evenings along the oceanfront in some great water.  Last evening the waves were rolling in with white water as far as I could see at times. The water was clean the wind was manageable and there was lots of current and surge.  It was ideal conditions in the spot I was fishing. If this were any other year (in recent memo...

Big bucktail jigs with a Fat Cow jig strip have been good in the last couple of evenings. July has started off better than June with an uptick in the surf fishing for me along the oceanfront.  There has been rough water due to all these fronts and I think that has caused resident fish to become a bit more active.  I'm still seeing no bait from s...

Many people will be on vacation in the next week and many will want to fish for stripers. If you are planning to fish from shore the outlook is fair to poor.  From a boat you have a better shot at catching but even that is way off compared to other years. Traditionally June has been a good month of shore fishing for stripers here in RI.  In the p...

Here's a slot coming ashore in the suds. The shore fishing lit up for me last  night in some rough water. I had yesterday circled on my calendar for the last week.  I knew great conditions were on the way. A big blow from the southwest was predicted with high surf conditions. A full moon high tide would occur just after dark. And there was a pos...

Striper fishing went from a fabulous April to a mediocre May to an incredibly poor June. I have never seen it this bad at this time of year from shore along the oceanfront and in Narragansett Bay. I still am out just about every evening and trying many different locations to try to find fish and it's been little or nothing. Many of my diehard fri...

This striper took a small Slug-go fished from the kayak this week. Since that last post I wrote fishing has really taken a dive along both the oceanfront and the Bay. We had the new moon this week and that always gets surf fishermen excited because of the big tides and water movement. All that is fine but when there is no bait around big tides m...

Here is one of many fish landed last evening on a Zoom Fluke fished off a small jighead a great choice when the stripers are on small bait. We are back to hot fishing.  Maybe it's the new moon tides coming or maybe it's an influx of small bait that has gotten things going.  Whatever the reason the striper fishing right now is very good from both...

Here is a slot I landed last evening on a Jumpin Minnow. The action has cooled in the last week for boaters and shore fishermen in Narragansett Bay. Fishing has cooled off I mean really cooled off in Narragansett Bay.  That persistent northeast wind that we had for almost a week straight dropped the water temperatures and sent a lot of fish pack...

They were around tonight in good numbers and most of them were BIG. The hot plug was the DOC. They were smashing away at this!

I landed this slot from the kayak this evening. Slots and over slots are in abundance right now especially in Gansett Bay. The good times are rolling especially if you are fishing the Bay where there are very big numbers of big stripers around. In fact this is the most big fish I have ever seen at this time of year. Slots are more plentiful than...

I landed very good numbers of stripers of all sizes from both the kayak and from shore this week.  The common theme here was what I was using.   I've written many times (and even did seminars this winter) about finesse fishing for stripers. In shallow water where stripers are feeding on small bait using unweighted plastic fluke bodies is the MOST...