Mayhem on the Raritan, Stripers! 4-18/19

[FASTEDDIE29]

Hit the river yesterday late morning looking for anything that wanted to eat. It was cold and cloudy with a stiff wind coming out of the north. Jumped in the river with the waders on and man I could feel the toes getting cold instantly. Gotta role with the punches. Tossed around some plastics first with nobody home. Out of the corner of my eye I see a splash. Switched up to a small plug and cracked a nice Striper on the 2nd cast with the plug. It was a short about 22-24 inches. This would be the smallest fish of the outing. While releasing the fish I start seeing more topwater eruptions up and down river and 10 feet in front of where I’m standing. I put 2 and 2 together and figured I was surrounded by a freshwater blitz of STRIPERS, oh boyyyyyy. Started casting towards the circles and had hook ups almost every cast from 11am til noon. All fish were between 24-28 inches with 4 fish being 28-30 and one river beast at 34 or better. This is nuts I’m saying to myself. I can’t believe I’m landing all these fish on this rod. I was using my St. Croix ultra lite with a Shimano Stradic 1000 size reel, 5 lb. Power Pro mainline and 12 lb. Berkley Vanish leader. This set up is lighter than most 5 foot Trout rods. Haha, intense! There’s a lull in the action and then 30 minutes later it picks back up. These fish are demolishing river Herring or something on top. Cast to the explosion, hook up, repeat. I couldn’t believe the action I had on this cold day in April. Wound up landing about 20-25 fish total from 11am-2pm when all the life seemingly disappeared. What a crazy midday blitz! I was smiling ear to ear walking out of there. HELL YESSSSS!!!





Decided to give it a go again today with some friends. We social distanced of course. As soon as we walk down we could see an explosion here and there but nothing ever developed. I got 2 more shorts around 24. Mikey got a nice keeper at 28. And this mystery dude that was down there managed a couple shorts as well. Wish we could’ve had yesterday’s action again. Lol! Can’t be greedy I guess. TIGHT LINEZ FELLAS!!!