thousands of gannets...

[Jesse Lockowitz]

was installing a pool today on EI, and like 400yrds off the beach ALLL DAY, gannets were just dive bombing the water like crazy. more then ive ever seen in one spot here before.

conservatively 2500-3000birds. all diving ALL DAY, theyd circle above for a few minutes, and all start diving at once.

just looking like someone was throwing 100's of m-80's in.

now ive seen gannets diving before here this time of year, just never like this.


what is it in such a huge mass that they are eating?...

cant be tuna can it?

[jkelly]

as cold as it has been it wouldn't surprise me if it was a huge striper blitz happening out there as well

[Jesse Lockowitz]

na wasnt menhaden.

you'd see them blurple back buggers schooled up easy.

iuno wtf they were eatin, but it was on. ALL day.



Jesse

[Foul Hook'd]

May have been some of those stunned or dead specks starting to show up with the falling tides would be my guess, how far off the beach were they, in pretty close it could have been reds schooled up.

Foul Hook'd

[Bodie]

they have been doing that for the past 2 weeks here in Surf City. THere were a ton out there today.

Big school of pogies off the beach monday

[WAHOONBOX]

SOMEONE NEEDS TO SWIM A HORSE BALLYHOO THROUGH THEM AND REPORT BACK TO ME....REALLY.

JESSE....I NEED AN UPDATE TODAY

[Bird Dog]

Your exact description is what they do up here during coastal rockfish season. They're diving on bunker.

When they dive like that and it looks sort of like a funnel, we call it a beehive.

[HOLWACHAGOT]

Jesse,
When it's frigid those bunker get deep(away from the surface) and often the Gannets can see them when we can't. As you know, the Gannets can punish them at 25-30 feet down. The Beehiving is indeed indicative of deep bunker...and it's a sight to behold when there are tons of birds.
This cold weather could have some Rockfish chasing Cackalacky bunker on the beach for sure. Get the yak and go see!
Holwachagot

[chumtini]

Interesting. We had the EXACT same thing east of Chatham back in Oct. Gannets crashing along the 110-120' line for MILES. If I recall correctly, it went on for a couple weeks. What was under them? Take a look (see the 30 sec mark).

http://www.chumtini.com/media/Videos/Oct30Birds-1.wmv

I don't know if you get shearwaters down there. When we found the shearwaters in with the gannets, we found fish; lots of schoolies with bigger fish underneath.

[MAKO19]

I'm drooling over here reading this. Did you have the opportunity to run out there and see what was going on? No doubt it was a mad dog Striper bite. Our season is over up here. I hope some of you guys get out there and take advantage of that bite. EPIC is not even the word to describe what the bite is like when you see birds like that. I only saw the bee hive 1 time in my life and we had the best Striper bite ever in that bird action.