Wednesday, November 12, 2014

In a Major Lull or Seeing the End?

The beaches were empty yesterday, Veterans' Day. At one point
there was only one fisherman plugging this popular spot. The
fishing has been poor so far in November.
I don't know.  I want to say that this is too early for the season to end, but on the other hand, things are not looking good.  In recent years the season continued to fish well right into the third week of November.  Some years it even pushed into early December.  In other years Veterans' Day was a very hot time along the RI south shore, probably the peak time in November for stripers and big blues.  But, not this year.  I was out yesterday and saw only one schoolie landed in several spots along the oceanfront. I did manage to get a couple of schoolies after dark in a backwater location.  In  the daylight  I saw no birds working. The few fishermen who were fishing were complaining about the poor November fishing, the lack of stripers and the lack of bait. Even today's fishing reports in The Fisherman noted slow striper fishing in the last week along the RI shoreline.
The water temperatures for the most part are in the low 50's right now.  Expect that to change, though, in the next week.  In other years, water temperatures in the 50's produced good fishing while temperatures dipping into the 40's produced a rapid decline in the fishing.  In other years there was a lot of bait like herring and peanut bunker around at this time; this year there is little or none.  I can also tell you that the number of fishermen has also declined greatly so that must tell you something.
So, we'll see in the coming week if there is one last big push of fish. Maybe it's coming, maybe not.