The summer fishing has been really good in the upper bay. I've rarely had a problem finding plenty of fish, but the fall fishing has started out to be even better for me. There has been a fairly large school of Stripers around the 30" range cruising around, and if you are lucky enough to find them, you are in for some fantastic fishing. I've actually been finding schools of Rockfish from the mid 20" to lower 30s all summer long, but they would usually just pop up for a short time and then be gone, they normally would be near the smaller Rockfish, Bluefish and white perch, but they would rarely be mixed in. Throughout the summer I would usually find them by hearing their splashes while they were attacking baitfish. The smaller fishes splashes sound like short snaps, but the larger fishes splashes are (of coarse) larger. It got to the point that I knew I was on the bigger fish as soon as I heard their splashes, There was no mistaking them, And they have been giving themselves away like that all season. All through the summer they were moving around a lot, I was finding them in a different spot almost all summer, But my last three trips they have been at the same spot. I actually found this spot a couple years ago, I past it by and didn't see any fish on the finder, but I thought it could one day be productive so I put it in my GPS, I would occasionally stop by and fish there and sometimes catch a fish or two, but recently it has been loaded with big fish, all of them around 30"!!
When I first found this school I was hooking up with a fish on every cast of my Spoofer spoon, they would hardly even give the spoon a chance to hit bottom and I could feel big fish nailing it.
The next time I went to the spot It didn't look to pomising, there were fish on the finder but it looked like Bluefish, I jigged for a while with no luck, But then I would sometimes notice Big swirls on the top of the water from the corner of my eye, (It actually wasn't as much swirls as it was just slightly disturbed water, where the fish would come near the surface to chase a baitfish that was on the surface). I grabbed my other rod that was already rigged with a surface popper and started popping it across the top of the water, and the fish were slamming it on almost every cast.
The next time out they were there again, once again I noticed the big swirls and started catching them with poppers again. Stealth was the most important ingredient in finding these fish, If I didn't approach the area quietly, I would had never even known the fish were there, they would had almost certainly shutdown or even left the area. I've caught lots of Stripers on poppers in the past, but I usually only topwater fished in the evening, the fish were usually smaller and I rarely ever caught more then a few in an hour or so, But this was no doubt the best topwater fishing I have ever experienced. If the rest of the fall is even half as good I will be happy
