Late Season Stripes

I recently had the pleasure of fishing with Captain Chris Elser, a big bass specialist with over 40 years experience in the western Sound. We launched right at the start of the outgoing tide during a morning window between rain storms. There was zero wind; perfect conditions for the fly rod. Not far from the launch we spotted birds working a patch of water where schoolie stripers were crashing on small baitfish. The fish finder was lit up for the next hour. White flatwings fooled several stripers under two-feet in length and one of keeper size was lost right at the boat. We tried culling out some bigger fish with large soft plastic baits and top-water plugs, but nobody was home. I had a bite taken out of a 14-inch pink Hogy so there's at least one bluefish still hanging around. It was a fun few hours to say the least and it felt great connecting with bass on the fly again. It's not quite over out there yet and don't rule out a late push of migratory stripers gorging on sea herring before ice season kicks in.