The past two weekends have seen some good striper fishing, with schoolies in southern Maine and truly big 40″ striped bass off Cape cod. Unfortunately, I only caught the schoolies, and my dad caught the big fellas.

While in Maine over Memorial Day weekend, we rose early to catch an outgoing tide at sunrise. We fished a jetty, that looked like it was setting up nicely, to no avail. There were birds, but they were far — too far either for my fly or my dad’s soft plastics and plugs. (Yes, I do hang out with spin fishermen too!) So we both moved, down the beach a ways and out into the water.

What happened next was truly great: a big group of schoolies came barreling toward us, slapping and moving on the surface. First they were in front of us, then beside us, then all around us and, just as quickly, they moved on. I ran, chest deep in water, to try to keep up. I caught them a few times and then, I waited. They circled the bay and came back — a few times — feasting on big schools of sand eels. It was a beautiful thing.