Beautiful Aerial Shots of Striped Bass Schools

One of the reasons I love fishing is that it takes you to beautiful places in search of beautiful things. If you’ve ever held a tuna, or a salmon, or a trout, or any number of other fish, you know that these can be beautiful creatures.

New photos from aerial photographer Wayne Davis help make this point. Flying over Cape Cod bay recently, he spotted huge schools of striped bass. So numerous are the stripers, that they remind me of the sight of a large flock of starlings against the sky. They’re awesome, in the true sense of that word.

One of the things I love about these photos is how they elevate bass. In my opinion, striped bass often do not rise to the top of the list of “beautiful” fish. Their stripes are geometric, their color palette more limited, more two-toned, than many of their hard-tailed saltwater companions. This doesn’t diminish my admiration for them, or my love of chasing them. I just don’t think of them as stunning in the same way as opalescence of a false albacore. These photos make a different case.

aerialphotostripedbasscapecod

aerialphotostripedbasscapecod

aerialphotostripedbasscapecod

aerialphotostripedbasscapecod

aerialphotostripedbasscapecod

Book Review: Salt: Coastal and Flats Fishing Photography

Salt: Coastal and Flats Fishing Photography by Andy Anderson, a new coffee table book exclusively about saltwater fishing, captures the beauty of these places. Published by Rizzoli, who specializes in high-end coffee table books like this, the book is the nicest I’ve seen on the subject.

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