Exploring Napatree

One of the schoolies

Yesterday was one of the nicest November days in recent memory. I had planned on an adventure in Connecticut, but the weather had been "too nice" for my plans to be successful. So I decided to fish the Rhode Island oceanfront all day, and take a walk out to Napatree for some birding at low tide.

I hit Narragansett on my way to South County. I stopped at three places and made a few casts. I didn't fish hard consequently I did not find fish (they were there). Next I hit a South County beach before going to Westerly. I saw some fish breaking so I stuck around for a bit. There were eight guys fishing, however,
all the fish were right in front of one guy. He caught seven fish while I was there, and no one else caught a thing. The fish were tiny, in the 8-15 inch range.

I have a habit of staying in a spot "too long" when I have other plans. Many times I'd have a plan for the day and I "ruin" them by fishing a spot too long. Today, I have no doubt the fish I saw would spread out or being joined by other migrating schools. I'm sure if I slugged it out at this spot, I would have caught some. However, I stuck with my plan and left for Napatree. Low tide was at 1:30 and I wanted to see if any late shorebirds were around. It wasn't difficult leaving the micro stripers anyway.

When I got to the parking in Watch Hill I brought my binoculars, camera, a bag of lures and my rod. My plan was to bird and fish if I saw anything. I knew if I left my rod in the car, I'd be sure to regret it even if birding was my top priority.

I made the long walk out to the outflow making some casts along the way. I was walking fast and not expecting to catch anything. However, I was pleasantly surprised to land a decent schoolie. After twenty minutes of walking, I thought I saw birds in the distance. I looked through my binoculars. Sure enough a huge blitz was going on with fish splashing and birds working. I was at least fifteen minutes away.

I went past my birding spot and walked all the way to the point. The blitz I saw was multiple blitzes. It was crazy, I could see at least four blitzes going on in Little Narragansett Bay. There were schooles of nervous menhaden around also. The catch; none of this was withing casting range. I fished the area hoping the fish would come in but they never did. While I was hoping the blitz would come close I fished the point. I tried to discover how the current and tide was affected by all the structure. At least I could be productive in that way.

After an hour the blitzes died down. I started walking back to the outflow where the birds congregate. There really wasn't much there. So I fished the shoreline again hoping to pick off a fish on the way back to my car and then back to Narragansett. I started to catch fish. Nothing was showing but I  caught five decent schoolies just walking the shoreline. I decided to stay at Napatree till dark and beyond.

I did walk back to my car and unloaded my SLR and binoculars. I wrapped a swimmer up and stuffed it into my pocket. Then I trudged back over the sand to where I caught the schoolies. They were no longer there. So I walked to the ocean side and worked that shoreline. I picked up two more. When it got dark, I made a few casts but I was tired and hungry. I just wanted to get the 90 minute ride home over with.

While I was working for these fish, my friend Dave was 30 minutes further north. He, like me, was working hard to catch fish. He didn't have huge blitzes in front of him, and had to pick them off one at a time like I did on the beach ( he did end up with more than me). The point is, there are a lot of schoolies around right now. With some effort, they will be found and caught, but you can't expect them in every spot. You might walk into them at your first stop, but if they are not there try another.

All in all, not a  bad day. I caught fish at a spot that I had never fished. I wish all the fish that were blitzing would have came in. However, watching all those blitzes was still a lot of fun to see.