Schoolie

In 2012, warm winter brought us earlier start of the season. I got the first flounder in the first week of April. Probably because of the earlier bloom of the plankton near shore, bait fish grew faster and they fed record high amount of squid from the middle of June.

When I went to Beverly pier early June, there were tons of small herring. Striper chased these bait fish and you could see active surface action every night. I brought a medium rod and a sabiki rig with a jig. I wanted to catch some mackerel for bait but couldn’t catch anything. Instead, I hooked small herring during jigging. When I slowly trolled the rig with a herring on a hook, I got a hit. The way it ran was different from that of mackerel. It was a schoolie, 16’’ or so. When I hooked another herring, I traced the same zone again and got another. It was also the same size. Although it was a catch and release fishing, it was fun. I kept fishing for a while and, caught and released a dozen.