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This time of year, the fishery in the northeast gets very visual, which is a fun exciting way to hunt.  What I mean by that is there are a lot of visual cues as to where the fish are.  Birds are diving down eating the same baitfish the predatory fish are, the fish are pushing bait to the surface, sometimes forcing them to jump clear out of the water.  The surfaces feeds and ensuing chaos and splashing will direct even the most novice anglers to the fish.  This tends to happen in the fall moreso than spring or summer because of the abundance of bait (particularly small bait birds like terns can feed on), and because of the increased energy and activity of fish like striped bass, false albacore, and bluefish.  The energy comes from the cooling water temperatures and their primal instinct to feed before the long winter and also their migrations south. 

Because this visual factor is so much more important in the fall, it’s a good time to discuss alternative strategies: chasing the visual cues (sight casting) vs. casting to the structures that hold fish all season hold at the right tidal stage.

Some fisherman in the fall will simply drive and drive their vessels or move from spot to spot until they find the surface feeds, and won’t stop and cast unless they see these conditions.  This can serve to be very productive, and often anglers are rewarded for putting miles in to find all-out blitzes, no longer how long the search takes.  Others fish structure that serves as ambush points for fish like striped bass and blues all season long.  After all, it’s well known that fish are habitual and return to the same spots day after day and year after year because of those spots’ tendency to funnel bait and make them vulnerable to attack from larger fish.

My personal opinion is that you can’t simply choose one strategy or the other, but a combined approach is necessary.  It’s foolish to ignore diving birds and bait on the surface, but it is by no means safe to say the fish aren’t in a spot if you can’t see them.  In fact, particularly for striped bass, the best fall fishing days I’ve had were in spots with no visual action, or any signs of fish feeding to the human eye above the surface.  This attests to the idea that the easiest days to entice a fish to bite a fly or lure are not the days when bait are plentiful, but instead when their scarce or elsewhere.  It’s simple, the angler’s offering has less competition.  When the bait is so thick you could walk on it, it’s really hard to get fish to choose the ‘fake’ option, and it’s nearly impossible to fish live bait with smaller more slender baitfish like sand eels, bay anchovies, or peanut bunker.  These are precisely the forage that larger fish are after in the fall. These small fish leave their protected rivers or bays to make their own migration.  The predators that have been out in deeper water to stave off the hot oxygen-deprived water of summer are right there waiting for them.  These converging events are what trigger fall bites.

Now, that isn’t to say I don’t sight fish or see the importance of it.  But my take on sight fishing a bit different.  It’s extremely important to be aware of your surroundings and what’s going on.  However, I believe sight fishing is the single best way to direct an angler to where fish are feeding now, but more importantly, where they return to.  I recall a day in October 2015, I was cruising around the Norwalk Islands fishing my typical rips for bass.  Out of the corner of my eye I spotted something that caught my eye and brought my heart rate up: a handful of adult bunker jumping clear of the water and frantically swimming on the surface.  I knew there was something under these bunker hunting them, no doubt about it.  This was a spot I had never been to before in my life.  It’s a treacherous, rocky finger of underwater boulders where current moves swiftly on an outgoing tide.  So I idled my little center console over to this rip, positioned my boat upcurrent of the area where I saw the action, and cut the engine.  I drifted over the rip, and had an excellent afternoon with multiple bass to 40 inches on topwater lures.  This was a spot I had cruised by countless times but never taken the time to fish, for whatever reason. 

This event was not at all uncommon of my fishing experiences, time and time again I have been keyed in to ambush points by surface action.  And the best days aren’t even when the surface action is happening, it’s when it ISNT.  That spot has produced fish for me well into 30 pounds, and is extremely consistent at the certain stage of the tide.  The funny thing is, since that date I have never seen surface action in that spot.  

Searching for birds and bait is undoubtedly effective (if you can find it).  It’s absolutely necessary for false albacore.  But when it comes to stripers, don’t just skip the “usual spots” if you’re not seeing anything.  And if you are seeing And catching, make a careful note of the tide stage.  

Tight lines 

The dogfish, commonly known as a sand shark (although that’s technically a very different, scarier species), are the only species commonly found in the Long Island sound.  They can provide excitement for kids, but they are generally thought of as a pest amongst the hardcore fishing community.  Although they do put up a fight, they don’t rival the striped bass or bluefish pound-for-pound, and most people don’t recognize their food value.  They are generally caught on rod and reel accidentally when targeting fluke, sea bass, or striped bass, and they are considered a by catch.

However, there’s more than meets the eye when it comes to the lowly shark.  These sharks make fantastic table fare, and they are one of, if not the most sustainable species to catch and eat in our waters.  A quick google search will show you that the Dogfish are what fish and chips are sourced from in jolly ole England.  Once the codfish stocks were wiped out in the eastern Atlantic, the English turned to dogfish for their fish and chips recipes.  The meat was so tasty, and demand was so high, that their stocks are actually now considered to be depleted, and can no longer be targeted commercially.   The exact same trend that occurred across the pond is happening right here in the states.  Codfish stocks are decimated, and commercial fisherman are being forced to target other species which are more plentiful.

The only difference is, the catch from US commercial boats tends to go overseas, 99% of it according to commercial fisherman Brian Marder, of Marder Trawling Inc.  NPR did a fantastic piece on this trend, and the push to drive demand for dogfish here in the states.  UMass Amherst now serves many varieties of the dogfish in their cafeterias, with very positive reactions.  https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2017/01/07/508538671/would-you-eat-this-fish-a-shark-called-dogfish-makes-a-tasty-taco .

But overall, the dogfish really has not caught on in the states, and has a certain stigma that comes along with it.  I think this has a lot to do with the culture and also privilege of anglers in North America.  Unlike the Old World, the western Atlantic is still relatively abundant with species.  We thankfully have not completely overfished our waters yet, but we’re certainly going in that direction.   Americans have had the privilege over the past few centuries to harvest fish that are delicious eating, convenient, and also nice on the eyes, species like the Striped Bass.   The same striped bass which were fished to near extinction in the 80s, prompting a moratorium on killing the fish, that was adopted by most states on the eastern seaboard.

The dogfish, on the other hand, have only one of these three attributes: they certainly are delicious.  They are not aesthetically pleasing, or convenient; which is likely why they are so abundant.  When I say convenient, I mean fish that not only yield a lot of meat per pound, but are also easy to filet.  Dogfish  require a different technique to filet that most anglers aren’t versed in.  But once you get it down, these fish are downright fantastic eating.  The Youtube-famous, New York based fisherman Elias Vaisberg concurs, check out his YouTube video pitting the shark against flounder, porgy, and brown trout.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RuTAKW9IMUI  You’ll see, all the taste testers agree the dogfish make a mighty fine meal.

This season, I challenge you to keep some dogfish, break the stigma and swallow your macho man pride (as well as the shark).  It is our duty at anglers to monitor the species we hunt, and at times, check the species.  It is without doubt that striped bass are dwindling, and good numbers of sizeable flounder or sea bass are really hard to come by consistently; meanwhile the number of anglers on the water is only increasing.  There are quite frankly too many of them, as any bottom-fisherman know, and they eat anything and everything edible in their path.  We need to help keep the ecological balance before our species follow the way of the English dogfish and the cod.  The next time you’re lamenting a tough day on the water, keep a ‘doggie.  I promise you won’t be disappointed.

Well ladies and gents, things have really started popping off the last week.  I managed some quality bass in my local haunts on topwater, got in on some epic albie feeds, and also did a bang up job on the ‘tog and Black Sea Bass.  It seems as though the fishing is really hinging on air temperatures.  Cold nights, good morning of fishing.  Moderate night, not so great fishing.  As much as I am loving this unseasonably sunmerlike fall weather, I’m really looking forward to more chilly nights.   We are starting to see some daily surface blitzes right in the river, around sunset and sunrise.  I believe all the forage that spends the summer in the rivers are moving out, which is also accelerated during colder temps.  I know the guys to the east in Connecticut are doing even better on the bass and blues, and I’m hoping they are releasing the fish pointing towards New York City.

On the albie front, it seems as though the windier days are making the hardtails more ballsy and aggressive.  Generally speaking, they are getting more picky as the season goes on, or so I’m told.  We should have maybe another week or two of these frustrating little football fish.
Tight lines!