It sounds like you had a great day on the water Phil.
Those fish you saw spraying water up in the air, were most likely Bluefish. I have never seen big Stripers feed like that. They might swirl on the surface - but Bluefish are the violent surface feeders like you describe. Besides - I read in a fishing report today - that the Blues are definitely there now, so look for the Mackerel to be moving out pretty soon. They don't much like those Bluefish.
Man - I wish you weren't so far away - I would bring my boat up and we could go out buddy boating and then we would see about those fish!
By the way - on a different subject - my wife and I were just sitting reading and it was real quiet and I heard this Peep - Peeping sound - and I looked out the window and the yard was full of wild turkeys. There were three hens with their broods and from what we could count there were around thirty of the little varmints running around. It was like a three ring circus there for a little while. The young ones were all sizes, from 4 the size of banty hens to 10 that were about three quarters grown.