CTFishTalk.com: Bait, bait everywhere, and nary a striper to see. - Connecticut River Reports ( CT River Reports ) - A Community Built for Connecticut Fisherman.

Redneckangler · Joined: 05 May 2012 Posts: 851 Location: Meriden, CT

Bait, bait everywhere, and nary a striper to see. I decided to move down river this weekend, despite the stripers still hanging north of Middletown. This was my first trip to the mouth of the CT River, as I had heard that action was pretty decent around Great Island the last week or so. After yesterday afternoon's trip cut short (20 min. total) by a problem with the Lowrance, I was back on the water at 5am this morning. The tide was coming in until about 7:30, and it was dead calm. I'll never get tired of a sunrise over the water.

I started throwing pearl Sluggos and some swim baits, and had a few swirls and swipes, but no hooksets. Close to and hour and a half of work did not produce a fish, nor did I see any pulled in by anyone else in the area. I decided to motor north and see what I could find. A few swirls above the 95 bridge, but I just couldn't get a fish to bite.

Just below Hamburg Cove, the water exploded with herring. I was marking a school so thick It looked like the bottom was at 10 feet in 30+ feet of water.

Surely, bass had to be beneath. I dropped soft plastics through the school, bouncing them of fish as they descended. I fished swimbaits at every level and sluggos on top. Nada. Nothing. I wasn't marking any big fish either. Same story with two or three other boats that had been working the school for a while. Livelining may have been the trick, but also illegal with river run herring.

Time running short, I ran back to the mouth where the earlier action repeated itself. Swirls, but no takers. I'm sure I could have ground out a fish or two, but I had to be in early. This was my first, and hopefully last, skunk of the season.

PS - Next week it's all NaCl!!!
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Weekly reports from around CT, the LIS and beyond.

fishfinder · Joined: 19 Jun 2011 Posts: 1672 Location: Naugatuck, Ct.

Same thing on shore for me. Ran into plenty of herring and some large pods of bunker but nothing under them!
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PECo · Joined: 06 Oct 2009 Posts: 5203 Location: Avon, CT

I was in Boston, yesterday, and saw a lot of river (aka blueback) herring swirling on the south bank of the Charles River underneath the Harvard Bridge:

Link

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toconnell · Joined: 27 Jul 2010 Posts: 9 Location: Wallingford

I think I was one of the guys you spoke to. We fished around the bait fish for 30 minutes or so, just before we headed into Hamburg Cove. We were headed there to fish for bass and pickerel since the stripers weren't hungry. I thought I had one hit, but it could have easily been a herring that I snagged.

Hamburg Cove fishing was fun. There are some big pickerel in there.

Redneckangler · Joined: 05 May 2012 Posts: 851 Location: Meriden, CT

PECo · Joined: 06 Oct 2009 Posts: 5203 Location: Avon, CT

mustang11 · Joined: 14 Jun 2009 Posts: 65 Location: Deep River, CT

I was at the mouth of the river early Saturday from about 5:30am on. We noticed a lot of baitfish activity especially around the jetty but very few swirls or signs of fish at the surface. While working our way down there from the bridges we only saw two schollies get picked up - one from a boat and one from a Kayak. On one cast of mine I spooked a decent fish when I dropped the lure right next to it disappeared with no hit. Out past the jetty the birds were having a field day diving and plucking bait from the water then carrying away what they caught, but it didn't seem like there were many stripers in the area to share in that feast.

Brian