Fished the bridges at Hooper’s Island on Sunday. It was just after high tide when I pulled up at 1pm. I ate lunch and took my time unloading the truck. Beautiful afternoon – clear and sunny, temps in the 60s and no wind. There might’ve been 2 other boats out on the water and 1 other angler fishing from shore. Not bad for a Sunday.

Transducer came loose and wasn’t reading accurately. Will have to remount it once I get home. Paddled down to the bridge and saw that the current was really ripping through there. Made a few casts and missed two bites early. Nothing for the next 2 hours. Tried a few different areas of the bridge but might try exploring more next time. After a while I even tried bottom fishing with fishbites but still nada.

I eventually paddled back to a cove near where I landed to gt out of the kayak and stretch. I took some pictures and tried fishing from shore. Sill nothing. Water was extremely clear and current was still ebbing strong after 2 hours. Not really marking fish since the fish finder wasn’t working and didn’t see any surface activity or bait. Decided to stick to fishing the bridge structure until dusk.

That plan really paid off. Around 3:30pm a stiff wind picked up and the fishing just turned on. From then on out I caught stripers from 16″-24″. The action was very steady for about 2 hours. The fish were right on the pilings but would also chase lures to the boat. Had one break me off when he hit right at the boat.

Fishing tight structure like those bridge pilings from a kayak was extremely effective. I could simply get right to the fish without spooking them. At one point, I was holding the boat off the piling with one arm and jigging a bass assassin with my other arm. This was all in front of a few other anglers, a couple shorebound guys and a headboat. Having an audience when I’m catching fish isn’t necessary for me but I have to admit that it wasn’t all bad. Maybe some of those guys will go out and buy a kayak.

I eventually just left feeding fish, totally satisfied and extremely thankful for the day I had. I hadn’t had a day of striper fishing – any kind of fishing really – in a long time. Paddled back and stopped to talk to one of the shore anglers for a little but and he offered to help me load the kayak up. I declined but he was a pretty nice guy and stuck around to tell me about some other spots I should try in my kayak.

A lot of shore guys drink beer and bust their bottles on the rocks of the beach where I launched. It sounds shitty but the result is actually pretty pleasant with sea-glass pretty much everywhere. (Where else would sea glass come from but drunk rednecks by the sea?) After loading up I found a few pieces to bring home and thought about a drawn out timeline of me fishing the Honga like this. After a while, would I eventually fill one of the mason jars with sea glass? Not a bad project.