What happened to the stripers?

i was wondering why I couldn’t find a party boat report on the busiest day of the year before seeing Capt. Frank Masseria’s comments from Vitamin Sea out of Keyport as follows: “Today was a grind kind of bite. The bird life that we’ve been used to seeing was nonexistent this morning. In fact, most of the morning went by without us having a single fish. We went into hunt mode and traveled many many many many many miles to find fish. eventually we ran into them and managed to put a limit of keepers in the boat and a bonus fish to top it off. Certainly not the fishing with have been used to but good enough.” Masseria (917 439-6448) has spots open Wednesday and next Sunday.

Capt. Ron Santee had a similar report on his Fishermen from Atlantic Highlands as it was a tough day without the clouds of birds over feeding fish. There were some mid-water marks, but only a “handfull” of keepers were caught on jigs — with just one on a swim shad,

It appears that the period of rough seas and big swells pushed the initial mass of stripers in NY/NJ Bight along to spawning rivers to the south and perhaps into Hudson River. However, there are many more to come from New England. The waters aren’t even cold yet, and today’s bad surprise should be very temporary.

A small craft advisory is up from 6 p.m. to late tonight, but by morning it’s down to north at a mere 5-10 knots before going back to northwest in the afternoon – creating ideal conditions for surfcasters.