Crazy late report…
On Wednesday…
Sandy Creek experienced something that no resident had seen on their years of living on the creek. A severe alewife die off. Not on the Shores of Lake O but actually in the creek . Words cannot explain the number of alewives seen in the today. Tens of thousands of alewives. Alive, dead, or half dead. For the few that had a chance to see it… it was quite a sight.
On Thursday…
I haven’t seen much of the home water since fishing the WHI the week before so on Thursday I headed out on a mid morning scouting mission for an hour or so to check water. I had high hopes of finally getting off the shoreline but to my disappointment, I was met with nothing other then clean and cold 42 degree water everywhere. 10 fow to 90 fow. Yuk. With heavy rain on the way, hopefully it would change that.
On Friday…
The heavy rain finally gave us a break at 930 and we left the dock at 10. The lack of any good colored watered led to a tough bite throughout our midday trip. We fished east and stuck on the edge of the mud water in the stained water which was around 44-45 degrees. We worked for our fish and ground out 10 bites with mix of Browns, Steel, and one small King. Typical skinny water set w/ DW ss and a mix of sticks off boards, riggers, and slide divers. Probably the toughest water we have had to fish all year but we did watch the water get better as the day led on. Every seagull in New York might have been in front of the harbor gorging themselves on bait. The true highlight was the number of Bald Eagles on the shoreline just east of port. We got to enjoy a mix of both mature and immature Bald Eagles feasting on the alewives in the creek plume. Pretty incredible to see and probably an experience of a lifetime.
On Sunday…
With all the rain and west wind for a couple of days, I was anticipating a good day and we got it. We fished east of port and outside the mud line but inside the clean water in 25-35 fow in the slighly stained water which was a decent 46-48 degrees. 18 bites total for us with a big class of Browns, a couple of Steelhead, 1 Laker, and 5 Kings all in on the action. Today we changed up our set and we fished 2 large sticks off the boards and everything else (short divers, riggers, boards, leadcore) was loaded with Stinger Stingrays (NBK, Gator, black/silver, goby).