Friday, November 30, 2018

Gale Warnings

That's all you see every day. It was too rough to go on the boat this week, so we went to the beach instead. The NW winds gusted over thirty knots, but down in the surf, behind the dunes, it was actually comfortable and you could cast a mile. The water was a little dirty, but we managed a couple of schoolie bass each day. Hmm, stay home and rake leaves or go fishing, easy choice. Good fun and the fall run has just begun.

Sunday, November 25, 2018

More Wild Weather

The local rivers and lagoons still had skim ice yesterday morning, the earliest in the season I could ever remember. The forecast was for rain developing in the evening, but I did not expect the fierce storm that woke me through the night. Around 12:30 this morning the wind was blowing so hard, I could not see out the windows and the pine trees were whipping around like blades of grass. I turned on the computer just to check and see if the world was ending, and saw reports of sixty mile per hour winds. It seems over the past two months that we only get one nice day per week for fishing.

Wednesday, November 21, 2018

Happy Thanksgiving

Fishing is good but you have to be in the right place, at the right time with the right weather. Some nice blackfish have been caught when there were west winds and calm seas. Striped bass are chasing sand eels and you have find them while they are feeding. The sea bass and porgies have moved off to the wintering grounds, beyond forty miles, but bite good if you can get there. I hope everybody eats too much and has a great day. Happy Thanksgiving.

Monday, November 19, 2018

Blackfish Trip

Let's hope for nice weather and get together for a blackfish trip, Sunday December 2.

Friday, November 16, 2018

You Can't Make This Up

Ok, it snowed and no one was ready for it. I can see that the state and most towns screwed up by not responding and I have heard tales of four and five hour commutes, but to not have the roads cleared and treated THE NEXT MORNING is inexcusable. Turns out the NJ League of Municipalities was holding a big party in Atlantic City while all of this was going on and no one was home watching the store. Well, at least the NJ DOT had a plan for today, they told everyone to stay home.

Thursday, November 15, 2018

Has Anyone Seen Smilin' Phil

Another storm in this year of never ending bad weather. This time we got five inches of snow in places and it shut down the entire state. Well we headed out early, and grabbed a couple flounder and got home before the rain started.

Wednesday, November 14, 2018

More Wind Rain and Cold

Last week the weather let up enough to go flounder fishing but the bite was off in the dirty water and we had to spend a lot of time just to catch dinner. Today, we figured we would try in between rain storms as the next few days look questionable. When we arrived on the pier, the temperature was thirty eight degrees and the wind was calm. There was only one other angler out and I did not have much hope as the water was brown. As the sun rose, so did the wind and we managed to put our limit in the cooler before it became unbearable and retreated home to defrost. The sea bass are moving farther offshore after every blow, but blackfish opens this week and the striped bass are still around.

Monday, November 5, 2018

Calm Seas Between Gales

Enough about the weather this season. The boat was out Saturday, trying to get offshore, and needless to say I was happy I was not onboard. Sunday was a different story. The striped bass fever spread far and wide, and trailer boats from PA were passing me on the highway. When I got to the marina, there were over twenty boats in line for the launch ramp. Well, we headed offshore on a calm ocean and away from the madness and set up fifteen miles out and the sea bass were hungry. We picked all day at nice big sea bass and only had a few dogfish, blues and porgies. A big trigger fish took the pool. The bluefin tuna are still around out there also. It was an odd nice day in between gales. The striped bass never did take hold along the beach as the water was churned up from the previous blow, but they did catch them up towards Sandy Hook. Them "Pennsyltuckians" should stick to deer hunting.

Friday, November 2, 2018

Striped Bass Fever

The Jersey shore is crazy over striped bass as many big ones were landed this week. On the other hand, we headed offshore in the wild west wind on Tuesday and cashed in on the sea bass bite. The fishing grounds fifteen miles offshore are loaded with big sand eels and all types of marine life are feeding on them. The 25 plus knot winds and strong current made fast and steep waves, and it was difficult fishing as you had to hang on to keep from being thrown about. The sea bass came up full of six inch sand eels, so rather then wasting time with bait, we switched to power bait tubes (gitzits), that we use for codfishing, and had a bucket full of large to jumbos in an hour. We were invited on a striper trip aboard an old and familiar boat on Thursday, but declined to go flounder fishing instead. It only took about forty five minutes to limit so we played catch and release until 9:30. Evelyn landed five and I had ten, but it was such a nice day, we headed to a local creek and threw out the crab traps and had lunch. A few runs produced nothing but empty traps, until one pull came up with four crabs in the trap, the only ones we caught. We were going to try the flounders again today, but the winds are gusting to thirty knots and it is wet outside, so we will take a pass and have flounder fillets stuffed with crab meat. The boys on the boat reported two striped bass to 27lbs, and some blackfish up to 7 lbs.