Unusual Life Form

[Big Mike]

Yak67 was kind enough to join me this morning at Piney Point for my first trip since surgery. Would love to say the fishing was great but it was awfully slow. That isn't what made this trip interesting. Soon after we launched we found ourselves surrounded by 10's of thousands of 1 to 2 inch stick shaped pink creatures swimming in the water. We couldn't tell if they were some sort of small squid, a strange shrimp or something else. Gary snagged one and it kind of looks like a bloodworm. Has anyone else encountered anything like this or could tell us what we encountered?
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[Slobber Bob]

Cinder worms. It can be tough when the fish are keyed in on them. You'll see them in the seaside back bays too.

[J.A. Veil]

Each year in May, large numbers of marine polychaete worms (locally known as May Worms) swarm in the water column to spawn. While they are up in the water column, the stripers gorge on them and may ignore other baits or lures. Some clever lure maker developed an umbrella rig with numerous small red hoses called a wormbrella to use during the May worm hatch.

I have never seen the swarm -- congrats on witnessing it first hand.

[Big Mike]

Thanks for the knowledge, never too old to learn something new. We thought all this bait would have a ton of fish around it but we never marked anything. Probably already had their fill and taking an early siesta.

[captmikestarrett]

When the Mayworms are the major bite you can catch good convict bass. I use a Carolina rigged Berkley sand worm on a small long shaft J hook. The leader is about three feet long.


Capt Mike