Here is a link to a Ken Abrahms article
Ken Abrames' Stripermoon
Here are some interesting points in the article:
swimming plugs that fish no deeper than 16" on slow retrieves.
During this same period of time eel fisherman have caught even more thousands of large stripers off the shore by casting their eels out and finessing them back slowly. I do not know of a single large bass that was caught on a live eel that measured three inches long and was retrieved quickly so it wouldn't hang on the bottom.
Commercial rod and reel fishermen, those that stay in the business, catch their quotas of large fish regularly. They do not cast and retrieve small lures where small fish are dominant to do this. They pinpoint their effort and drift or live line their baits, live and cut, in the current to where the large fish are holding.
If the fish are small they leave and try to locate a school of large fish. They cannot waste the time culling through small fish hoping for a keeper. They do not depend on the fish to come to their baited hooks but bring their hooks to the fish as a rule. There are exceptions to this but it is the normal pattern that produces large fish in marketable quantities.
Fish move into current.
Fish move when there is no current.
Fish feed by facing into the current and intercept their food as it is carried to them.
Surf fishing is practiced in the current from the breaking waves not the tide.
Drag is the single most important energy to understand in saltwater fly fishing both from the shore and from a boat as it is in any form of fly fishing in moving water.
Sinking lines are affected as powerfully by drag as floating lines and they will not cut through currents and cancel out the effects of drag. Hence two fish over forty pounds caught on sinking lines from the shore in ten years.
Fishing deep for stripers that are feeding high in the water is not intelligent although it has become the normal methodology with a fly rod.
Trying to make a fish move to your fly by retrieving it through the water when that fish is holding in a feeding lane waiting for food to come to it is a low percentage tactic.
Using weighted flies will not catch fish that are feeding on the surface.
Casting the line all the way out is not the solution to catching fish that are feeding close.
Droppers are a good way to find out what the fish prefer quickly.
Fish that are focused on one size and type of bait can be aggressive but are caught by using methods borrowed from selective tactics.
The energy level of the water that a fish is feeding in will tell you its energy level in feeding. Slow water relaxed fish. Fast water fast fish.
