It seems that good numbers of Stripers have moved into the Upper Bay Rivers and are continuing to provide anglers with steady action. Some of these fish are big too! Anglers fishing from shore in the Elk and Bohemia are catching White Perch and Stripers on Bloodworms. John Rodgers has been finding a few while light tackle casting from shore and Little John is catching them as well…

There are still lots of short fish around but more and bigger fish are arriving every day! Don’t put those fishing rods away just yet! Last week  Mark Muzzelman fished the lower Elk River casting big poppers and jigs in shallow water and landed several fish like the one below.

Lots of customers reporting back with stories of good catching! One thing that has been consistent is that the “Better Fish are beneath the schoolies”…As the jig falls resist the urge to set the hook as fish hit it on the way down. These are usually smaller fish. Let your lure get down to the bottom of the school before starting your retrieve. For suspended fish this might mean 15′ below the surface… not bouncing the bottom. These little tricks can make a big difference. Some big fish are still shallow as well. This pattern will be changing soon in most locations.

Ange Harclerode and I fished the Chester River Sunday morning and had an outstanding bite on mid-twenties size Stripers. Again better fish were on the bottom of the school. The skirted jigs and paddle-tail is what they wanted. Depth of the lure was critical to getting bit… too high or low would not get hooked up. This was a good one on the jig.

Ange and I stayed with these fish for about an hour before we lost them… When the current died we started light tackle trolling X-Raps (purple ghost) and caught about20 more that way and returned to the dock by 11:30. These fish taken trolling…

We kept 4 really nice Stripers for the table. These fish are fattened up nicely for winter.

The Fish are here but they are on the move… chasing bait. As the water cools they will be moving to different locations. Rock structures will often hold feeding fish. The bite is good and steady in most Upper Bay Rivers and will only get better!  Let’s go fishing!