This morning I was anticipating less than good conditions due to the heavy showers, but the waters seem to have cleared quickly and the stripers are right back on the bait.

The tides right now are huge flood tides and big drains. This water movement really gets things moving around. With such an abundance of bait the stripers are holding off the mouths of tidal rivers, streams and flats just waiting for the bait to get flushed to them.

This evening as the tide approached low, I watched a huge school of stripers corral a bunch of bait by taking up feeding positions off the mouth of a flat and cutting off their escape. As the tide neared low, the stripers progressively worked the bait back up into the ever shrinking drainage. The feeding frenzy that ensued was awesome! Water flying everywhere… pop, pop, splash… craziness!

With low tides at 7:00 AM & PM it’s definitely time to get out and fish either end of the day. The fish are keying in on small 2″-4″ bait fish, so fly fishermen can count on deceivers or minnow patterns working well and spin fishermen can go right to small rubber shad. That should do the trick.