Bait, bait everywhere, and nary a striper to see. (5/19/13 on the Lower Connecticut River)

Bait, bait everywhere, and nary a striper to see.  I decided to move down river this weekend, despite the stripers still hanging north of Middletown.  This was my first trip to the mouth of the CT River, as I had heard that action was pretty decent around Great Island the last week or so.  After yesterday afternoon's trip cut short (20 min. total) by a problem with the Lowrance, I was back on the water at 5am this morning.  The tide was coming in until about 7:30, and it was dead calm.  I'll never get tired of a sunrise over the water. 

 

I started throwing pearl Sluggos and some swim baits, and had a few swirls and swipes, but no hooksets.  Close to and hour and a half of work did not produce a fish, nor did I see any pulled in by anyone else in the area. I decided to motor north and see what I could find.  A few swirls above the 95 bridge, but I just couldn't get a fish to bite. 

 

Just below Hamburg Cove, the water exploded with herring.  I was marking a school so thick It looked like the bottom was at 10 feet in 30+ feet of water.  Surely, bass had to be beneath.  I dropped  soft plastics through the school, bouncing them of fish as they descended.  I fished swimbaits at every level and sluggos on top.  Nada.  Nothing.  I wasn't marking any big fish either.  Same story with two or three other boats that had been working the school for a while.  Livelining may have been the trick, but also illegal with river run herring. 

   

 

Time running short, I ran back to the mouth where the earlier action repeated itself.  Swirls, but no takers.  I'm sure I could have ground out a fish or two, but I had to be in early.  This was my first, and hopefully last, skunk of the season.