[Michael]

Friday evening I headed over to Short Beach to see how the action was and if stripers have moved down river. Got there right around mid tide while low for Sniffens Point was scheduled for 8:37pm. Winds were a light east and southeast and temps were on the cool side with a bit of a windchill. Skies were mostly cloudy with decreasing clouds throughout the evening.

Lures I played with included silver blue FLR-10, flake blue MXR-13, purpledescent BXM-10, shiner SSR-9, and spotted minnow SXR-10. Setup was the Okuma Tarvos/Fierce 2000/10 pound Spiderwire Stealth.

First cast out and hit a schoolie with the BXM-10.

As I kept playing with those lures I saw fly fishermen were on a roll.

Before sunset got closer I had 2 hits and caught 1 more on the SSR-9.

Then once it was almost sunset the bite turned on. The lure I chose to stick with was the shiner SSR-9 after the time I had back in April 2011 from a boat.

As the evening went on and it got closer to dead low, I kept on getting lots of hits and hook sets. Total was another 13 landed with the biggest fish being a hard fighting 22"er that was chunky and felt about 6 pounds.

Once it was right near dead low and caught that 22"er, I decided to hit the road cause things had slowed down already.

Stripers seemed to be more interested in smaller shad, herring, and bunker shaped lures than minnow plugs. I could have also seen topwater action with smaller lures such as SP-9, XRW-9, 3" Atoms, and Heddon Pop'n Image. Some freshwater topwaters such as a muskie buzzbait and Heddon Magnum Torpedo I could also have seen getting the attention of the schoolies.