Greetings from Capt. Dave & BAYMEN!

On board today, regular, Baymen Dick Bowman, who fishes with me a dozen times a season. Today, he brought is Echo 12′-6″ fly rod with a sink tip leader and fished a Blaine Chocklett Game Changer in pearly white. That set-up landed him a fine keeper up on the flats.

At first light, last hour of dropping tide and dead-calm seas. We found fish right away busting under birds and also discovered right away that the striped bass inside the bay are still on an ULTRA-SELECTIVE feed that will test the patience of the most hardy of fishermen! We got no fish in that first school.

Onward to the next spot where we got into fish on Monday and landed a few nice ones on the fly. The fish were there again this morning and they were again ultra selective, ignoring most everything we would throw into the middle of a topwater blitz. But we persisted, changed things up constantly, and we were able to land some fish.

At one point, we drive away from schools of busting bass because they would take nothing. Another school across a channel, had bait pinned against the bank of a flat and those fish would take just about anything tossed into the middle of the blitz! We landed several nice bass in that school before they moved on.

There were a lot of small schools of striped bass in the bay today, most working under flocks of terns. They were also very fast moving, VERY spooky of boat sound or sight of the boat, and VERY, VERY selective. I can’t stress this enough. We even kept one slot keeper and checked the stomach contents to see what the bait was because it was so tiny we could not see it. They only thing in the belly of the keeper was a small green crab! So, we switched over to green crab flies and never got a single hit! And that is pretty much how the morning went.

On the advice of a friend, we fished a sparse clouser (1 fish), a yellow/olive/white bunny strip (1 fish), a burnt orange/black kicky fiber baitfish (1 fish), a Blaine Chocklett Game Changer in pearly white (two different ones; one the fish ignored and never took, the other landed several fish. Go figure?), A Baymen Universal (zero hits), a white Jack Gartside Gurggler (zero hits), an olive/white clouser (1 fish), a Bonefish Bitters (zero hits), a micro Enrico Puglisi EP fiber baitfish 1″ inch long (zero hits), a 2″ inch pearl white Enrico Puglisi EP fiber baitfish (zero hits), a 1.5″ Gummy Baitfish (zero hits). And probably a half-dozen other patterns without any hits. I found it very strange that the fish would take a certain pattern only once and ignore the same pattern thrown into the middle of a blitz over and over again… Very weird behavior that has me overthinking things and wondering about scent and phermones as I have seen this in years past. One fly-one fish, change to a new pattern never fished and land another fish… Go figure.

We also landed a few fish on rubber crank baits. 1 fish on a 4″ inch in pearl, several fish on a 3″ inch in sparkle/pearl. We did not try topwater hardbody plugs or swimmers. So who knows?

Total catch and release today about 15 fish, with several keepers in the mix. One went home with Dick for supper. Several seals inside the bay today. One last interesting observation: ZERO peanut bunker inside the bay so far. This is typically the predominate fall run baitfish so keep your eyes out for it and be ready to switch up tackle and techniques when they arrive. ALSO: when I dropped in this am long before false dawn, there were two 32″ inch striped bass under the lights at the docks. They were surrounded by hundreds of baitfish of various sizes, inches from their mouths. They ignored them all and never once tried to catch any of them!

Back at it. Stay Posted. Hoping the selective feed ends soon…

Capt. David Bitters, BAYMEN, baymenlife.com 31 Years Guiding The Bay. Still In Love.

Soli Deo Gloria!