Anyone fishing the mouth of Raritan Bay this afternoon could hardly have missed catching stripers to his heart's content. There were so many stripers that the fleet couldn't drive them down. I joined Chuck Many of Annandale on his Ty Man from Gateway Marina in Highlands at 11 a.m. as we took a slow ride out into the northeast wind to fish the outgoing tide. We were prepared with more Tsunami Deep Shads which were the best bet in deep waters yesterday, but hardly used them as the fish were up and we chased birds all afternoon. Only a couple of small bass hit the 5-inch Tsunami shads we cast as the rest of the bass were from slot-size up to keepers. Many caught the largest at 37 inches, and we left them biting after we had released 51 stripers. I'll have more on this in Friday's column. The Sea Hunter and Fishermen from Atlantic Highlands were in on that bite along with every other party and charter boat seeking stripers in the bay.The weather looks decent for Thursday, but strong northwest winds and bitter cold are forecast after that. There were some very large stripers caught off the northern Shore on Tuesday. In addition to the 39-pounder on the Golden Eagle from Belmar that was noted here last night, there was a 40-pounder on the Miss Belmar Princess. Those boats didn't sail today due to the NE wind, which didn't turn out to be a problem in Raritan Bay. Bob Matthews, at Fisherman's Den in Belmar Marina,  reports that James Weir of Belmar caught four stripers up to 12 pounds on a Tsunami Shad cast at his local beach. ,