Why No Big Fish When Plenty of Bait Fishes Around?

"Jay Chan" wrote in message
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On Oct 1, 4:07 pm, "Musashi" wrote:
"Jay Chan" wrote in message

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Yesterday I went fishing in a pier inside a harbor that is facing Long
Island Sound in New York State. I could see many bait fishes (called
spears) swimming around, and I also caught bait fishes as live baits.
But all I could caught were small snapper and small sea-robins --
nothing big. People who used bigger baits caught slightly bigger
fishes, like someone used a 5 inches snapper to catch a 10-inches blue
fish. But no one in the pier caught anything big.

I thought if there were plenty of small bait fishes and "not-so-small"
fishes that fed on the bait fish, I should see big fishes that fed on
the "not-so-small" fishes - a complete food chain, right? What kept
the big fish away?

The boat traffic in the harbor was quite light; I could count the
number of boats passed by in that morning in one hand; I doubt that
was keeping the big fish away.

The temperature was like 76 degree and sunny just like the two
previous days -- meaning that the weather was stable.

The depth around the pier was like 5-ft to 10-ft. We were casting to
the deep water near the channel and reeling in to the relatively
shallow water near the pier. I were fishing from low tide to mid-high
tide. I am not sure if this made any different though. I mentioned
this just in case this might make a difference.

Should I catch a 8-inches snapper and use it as bait? Big bait, big
fish, right?

Any idea? Thanks.

Jay Chan

The schools of bigger bluefish are further out than the pier. This is
why
people get on partyboats.
The spearing you see are not the main food for Bluefish,
the huge schools of bunkers are. Spearing is used mostly
to catch snappers. Or as fluke bait.- Hide quoted text -

Thanks for the explanation. I recall reading that bunkers are very
rich and are very attractive to big fishes. I don't see any bunker
around the pier. This explains the reason why I don't see anyone
catching big fish near the pier. This also means that if I want to
catch big fish from shore, I will have to follow the movement of the
bunkers; I have a feeling that I probably was several weeks too late
and bunkers have already headed to deep water in Long Island Sound.

Thanks again for the tip.


If you want to catch big fish from shore, you probably would have much
better luck surf fishing. Although that will require new equipment.