I know, it’s terrible — we’re entering the heart of the fall striper fishing season and I haven’t updated this site in approximately forever. Sorry, been otherwise occupied. I’ve gotten out on the refuge a couple times recently with just one schoolie to show for it thus far. Surfland reports some stripers from the beach and with the weather taking a turn for the cooler, maybe the fish will become more active.
Unfortuntely I won’t be in a position to get out there again myself before early next week. The good news is my 4WD is not dead – an exhaust problem that well could have been fatal at its age (13 years, 238k mi) wound up costing me, incredibly, less than $100 to fix. So I will be on the beach again before too long.
Without divulging too much detail, my favorite spot usually is just south of Emerson Rocks, where Plum Island Sound/the Parker River empty out into the Atlantic. Typically there’s a long sandbar there, plenty of space and for various reasons few anglers make the shlep, so you don’t get the shoulder-to-shoulder situation you often see at the northernmost tip of the island. But the sandbar formation there is not optimal this year — even at the bottom of a moon tide there’s enough of a depression in one spot to preclude getting out to a long stretch where it’s shallower/wadeable. Ah well. There are a few other spots up the beach where a little bit of structure has formed, and I’ll probably focus more on those, when I’m not chasing birds.