Fall Stripers: 9/16/11

The forecast predicted a steady 10 knot breeze out of the SSW for wednesday. So that morning two buddies and I decided to make the run to the Southwest ledge on Block Island to take advantage of the hot striper bite. People were having luck with eels (weighted and non weighted) as well as trolling plugs, jigs and umbrella rigs on wire. Armed with both me and couple fishing pals headed out on our 21' Parker cc.
Needless to say we were greeted with a little more than 2-3ft chop and fading 10kt winds. We toughed out the ride going only 13kts at times but we got to the grounds around 6:45am right before the tide was beginning to flood. After determining the drift direction and speed we set up in 44ft of water. Minutes later my rod, rigged with a three wayed eel and 6 ounces of led, took off and soon we had our first 25 pounder on board.
The drift was, at times, over 2kts so our drifts were short and sweet, but for the most part very productive. The most productive depth was in 50 feet and as soon as we reached 58 feet we picked up and moved back. Throughout the next two and half hours we had two double ups on eels catchign stripers to 44''. These fish are healthy and are on the feed for their upcoming migration. As the bite faded around 11:30am we switched gears and plugged for bluefish on the Southeast side in the shallows. It was a terrific day and we were thrilled with being able to catch a weather window and capitalize on some fantastic fishing!!