10/9/23 Upper Narragansett Bay Striper Searching

Of the 4 years I've lived in RI I have spent very little time inside Narragansett Bay, especially anywhere north of the bridges. Knowing there was a ton of bait in the bay in the late summer, as in miles of peanut bunker, and not seeing any of that hit the beaches yet, I assumed its still mostly in the bay. I went to Rocky Point State Park this afternoon and wasn't all that surprised to see a ton of bird play way offshore, clear indication of fish on the feed. I walked around the park a bit to the different stretches of shoreline casting the yozuri hydro pencil, which is just a small spook that fishes very well. It casts further than any other small spook I have used and its easy to walk back and forth. At times the birds did come closer to shore and gave me some brief moments of false hope, though nothing ever came in range. Closer to dusk however a chunk of the birds all started flying to shore, just north of where I was fishing, around a corner to which I could not see where they were going. I walked the shoreline and when I got eyes on the feed, I saw a good school of bass right up along shore with peanuts flying through the air. It took a good little while to get to the spot but I was able to catch the tail end of it and get just a few minutes of action where I was at least getting a bite on every cast, catching a handful of fish between 22"-26". The main school pushed off after that, though some stragglers stuck around and I caught a few more before the action totally dried up. While not any amazing blitz it did make for a bit of good action on a beautiful evening. Peanuts were all pretty small, about 3-4" max, and it wasn't a huge school, but I can only assume the action taking place out of range was also all peanut bunker related. There are a lot of fish in the bay right now, mostly in the 20-30" class, and its worth a look if you live in the area. Included are a couple videos of the peanuts up along shore, and the birdplay I was seeing just offshore.