The big news this week was the arrival of migratory schoolies in Rhode Island. The full moon tides brought big bass into the Raritan, and bunker are drawing stripers out along the South Shore of Long Island.
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Striped bass fishing is closed in all Maryland portions of the Chesapeake Bay until May 15. Striped bass are currently spawning in the Chesapeake Bay tributaries, and have been doing so for the past two weeks. Some post-spawn fish may be headed down the bay and toward the ocean at this point.
Action on schoolie and occasional slot-size stripers continues to be strong off Ocean City, Maryland and Delaware, with the best action at Ocean City Inlet and Indian River Inlet.
The fishing lit up in Raritan Bay this week, with stripers from 30 inches to 25 pounds and larger moved in and fed heavily. There’s been reports of a big school of big post-spawn stripers moving down the Delaware River toward the bay, so the Southern New Jersey fishing is bound to pick up soon as well. In between, however, the fishing has been spotty. More bass are moving into Barnegat Bay and the other backwaters throughout the state, but for now, the largest fish are confined to the Raritan and Delaware.
Western Long Island Sound has a good school of migratory stripers. Most are schoolie size, with a few larger fish in the mix. Bunker have hit the South Shore as far as the East End, but outside Raritan Bay, there haven’t been any fish big enough to eat them just yet.
Fresh schoolies reached Rhode Island this week, with fishermen reporting catching schoolie-sized fish with sea lice. Connecticut anglers are still awaiting the first big wave of migratory bass, but hungry holdovers have been keeping them busy.
In addition to the fresh fish in Rhode Island, some liced-up schoolies have been reported on Martha’s Vineyard. It should just be a week or so before the first migratory stripers hit the South Side of Cape Cod and Buzzards Bay.
