If you walk down by the water right now along almost any dock or jetty, it's likely you’ll see schools of tiny fish swimming around. Seems like they’re everywhere this time of year. As a category, they're called baitfish, and they have a big impact on our late-summer fishing.
Where are they all coming from? Good question. Most were spawned this spring, and have only now grown large enough to attract the attention of fishermen and predator fish.
Those schools of little fish may be silversides, or bay anchovies. But the baitfish that seems most to excite fish and fishermen are what's called peanut bunker. Peanut bunker are juvenile menhaden, just an inch or two long. When they get bigger - up to a pound or two - fishermen might call them pogies. They're a popular bait. They're quite oily, and fish seem to love them.
When bunker are being attacked by bigger fish, they often swarm into what's called a baitball, which is a very tight school near the surface. This creates the action that anglers are looking for: the "blitz", when bunker are being fed upon from below by bigger fish (like blues or stripers), as flocking birds dive on them from above. The bigger fish, feeding aggressively, become a good target for fishermen.
If you're down by the beach this time of year, you might look out across the water and spy such a blitz.
And if you do, perhaps you'll pity the baitfish, caught between the hungry fish and hungry birds.
Or perhaps you'll run to get your fishing rod.
Steve Junker and Kevin Blinkoff round up the fishing action in this week's Fishing News, including news of bonito in Buzzard's Bay, and false albacore on the approach. It's all in the audio posted below - give it a listen.
