2012 Memorial Day Weekend

2012 Memorial Day Weekend.  The official start of summer.  Or is it the unofficial start?  I thought summer began on June 21st?  Some say it's June 1st.  Others say it's when the kids get out of school.  Going by the weather alone this year, it's already the middle of summer, and we just had 4th of July Weekend.  But it's still called spring fishing.  I'll offer a clarification.


July heat was widespread over most of the eastern half of the country, which added to the confusion of when summer 'officially' begins.  The temperature reached 90F on Memorial Day in Atlantic City, with mostly cloudless skies.

Memorial Day Weekend to Labor Day is the 'summer season', when it is officially fashionable to go to the beach, barbeque, and wear summer clothes.  June 1st begins the meteorological summer, which includes the months of June, July, and August and ends on August 31st.  That's what weather people use for record keeping.  I go by that one, and it is a lot easier than trying to remember if summer begins on the 27th or 28th, or the 20th, 21st, or 22nd.  Astronomical summer is the one that begins in the final third of June, on the 20th, which marks the longest day of daylight in the northern hemisphere and 24 hours of sun at the North Pole.  That ends on September 21st.  Basically, when I'm going to the beach, what I'm going to wear, and the weather are most important to me, so I use Memorial Day Weekend to Labor Day and June 1st - August 31st to signifiy summer.

After the seemingly endless spell of dreary E-ESE wind weather last week, better weather was finally forecast right in time for the holiday weekend.  The fog slowly lifted, and while there was never really a noticable front, the air began to dry out and heat up.  Importantly, the water began to clean up and with each tide the brown tinge from endless swell and rain showers was fading.  As soon as the 'clean green' water was back, so were the bunker, and so were some blow ups on the bunker  . . . but they looked way out.  That's what happens from a waste of nearly ten days of E wind crap weather, the fish move out.  Spring fishing is a very delicate fine tuned thing.  It can perform big time when the conditions are right, but it is overly sensitive to any protuberance.  In the meantime we toured the quintessential Jersey Shore party scene.

This Surf Club attendee did a perfect un-staged pose during a drive by video shoot of the crowd.  I'm really glad I don't uneccesarily hand out with people that immediately give fingers and attempt to persuade me to obey something, but in Memorial Weekends past epic big bass events happened right in the middle of the Surf Club madness and it was a great time.

In between surfing a marginal but fun swell leftover from the clogged frontal system that was in the region forever, Will, Doug, and I did numerous runs of the coast searching for fish.  Unfortunately, the immediate inshore water appeared lifeless, while offshore a line of bunker extended parallel to shore for most of the hard road coast.  'Maybe they'll come in  . . . ' Check another spot and the bunker, with fish on them this time, were still out there, same distance.  'Maybe they'll come in.'  Fed up with that, and with Will stoked on freshwater fishing, after a fun surf in old little swell we decided to do some local sweetwater bass action.  Will, Olivia, and I dutifully purchased our freshwater fishing licenses on Friday and went the other way of everyone coming down.  Our first spot was a success and held a few fish, enough to get a fix.

This was not the main event, regardless of what the shirt is saying.

More small wave fun surfing and more driving around watching bunker a mile off the beach came to a head on Monday morning when we spotted fish busting through bunker at the end of the spot check.  Duh, go out on the boat!  Hey, it was a holiday, so it was fine to take a holiday from beach fishing especially since it wasn't going to work.  Will called his dad, the captain of the family vessel, and with a beautiful day ahead the arrangement was made immediately.  A fine crew of four set sail around 10:00 am in search of big bass.

It was like an aquarium out there.  Clean green water and miles of bunker broken up into pods.

It didn't take long to find bunker in a situation like the school pictured above.  Step 1: find bunker.  Step 2: find bunker that have fish on them.  Overall Lesson: bring correct and extra gear.  I thought I would be able to snag and drop easily enough with a conventional, but it turned out being harder than on the kayak since the bunker were spooking and spreading from the drift of the boat.  So I switched to my duck spinning reel that would go 'quack quack' with each turn of the handle.  Will seemed to be doing okay with a new Century and Van Staal set up and was clearly going to be the winner this day.

After picking through bunker that had a few sprays, but without a hook up, Will mentioned going south and so we went.  A new drift was made on top of a nice school that was real tight and finning.  It looked fishier than other schools somehow.  I snagged and it didn't take long, maybe a minute, before it felt like I had hooked a submarine.  Fish on!  Wow it felt like a huge bass!  Line poured off the duck reel.  The run was so smooth there was no chance it was a blue.  I am not exaggerating, it felt like one of the bigger bass I ever almost caught.  Damn.  After a ten minute battle, I saw the familiar golden back and stripes, fifteen feet from the boat.  And then I heard the fortunately less familiar but always poorly timed sound, a big whaackk!  I blame it on the duck reel.  It was going 'quack quack' through the whole fight which killed my style of pressuring the fish.  The big one that got away!  Five minutes later the reel broke clear off the stem while casting to the bunker.  Later it fell victim to a sledgehammer in the driveway.

Will's story was much more successful:

If you want to catch fish you have to fish where the fish are!  BeachFishing getting mobile.  Will getting it done with a ~30 pounder.

Wow those spring summer spring ocean fish can fight!  All the parabola of the rod was used in getting this fish to the boat, as well as gymnastic skills in getting from the front of the boat to the back of the boat for a safe landing on the deck.  The clean green water big spring ocean fish are well worth it, aren't they?  It was all smiles from a successful catch and release.  Two weeks ago, Will was saying something about how it would be nice if he could get a big bass on Memorial Day Weekend.  Isn't it funny the fishing sucked for two weeks and he was the only one in the crew that caught the only fish this weekend?  I'm still trying to figure out what possessed me to bring that stupid duck reel and no back up.

This is the season now.  I just got a call from Donald, "I have a school of bunker about 120 yards out.  Big fish just went through them.  I looked around and I'm going to wait here.  If they come in you're only going to get one ring."  Hard but fresh SSW wind, clean water, outgoing tide, and blowing up bass . . . I know where I'm going . . .

Burning the Calendar

When you say I want to catch striped bass and bluefish in the ocean from the beach, know that by doing that you have unleashed a whole set of unseen forces that will conspire against you.  The job, family, and home and self preservation will immediately hold you back, provided you are into those things.  If you somehow manage to get past all that and actually get to the beach, atmospheric and oceanic forces will beat you even more.  They're too far out, too much bait and not enough fish, went to the wrong spot, tide changed and they turned off, and on and on . . . Or you will experience what we are going through right now, which is what I call burning the calendar.

Following bass blowing up on Mother's Day, the 13th, there's been nothing but a spell of poor wind and water conditions that have continued to waste precious calendar time.  There are only so many days for the spring season to happen, as it is with all seasonal activities.  S wind upwelling came on Monday and lasted through half the week, dropping the water to maybe even as low as 49F.  That shut it down.  Then the W wind never blew after the S.  Instead, a front passed at a perpendicular angle, and the wind went from N to NE, crossing up the S swell.  That did a great job of warming the water up very quickly to more of a late-June temperature, but unfortunately for fishing it prolonged a blah mix of swell and the water stayed rough and not good.  There was a report of action to the north, but locally it has been much less than stellar.

Where was the W wind?  No W wind followed one of the larger and formed true S swells in some time.  Instead the wind switched to N and NE following a waffling cold front.

As of tonight, Sunday, a week after a taste of white water bass action on Mother's Day, the pre-Memorial Day Weekend forecast is looking pretty lame.  More lingering onshore wind, more lingering SE swell crossed up by the wind, and blah sky conditions with chances for showers.  It's not that it can't happen, it's just the forecast conditions are far less than ideal.  What would be great is for a nice cold front to come through with a few days of dry NW wind to clean the water up and turn it green, as well as flatten the surf.

It looks like more time will be spent stuck in this lousy 'flow' of weather.  The italicized print from the 21st-29th is the forecast as of Sunday evening.  Notice the 13th, the good day, followed a pretty good W wind that dropped the surf.



The only thing of note I saw fish wise this week was a combo of an upside-down spinning reel and white rod.

Hopefully something happens this week that breaks a long spell of mediocre that, in my opinion, has been affecting the area in regards to the fish and the surf.  That something may be Memorial Day Weekend intoxication events, but I'd prefer it be that and some great fishing or waves that finally clean up.  I was reminded today that shark season is soon approaching, so if there continues to be nothing interesting going on, I will provide shark calendars for June, July, and August in the next update.  I've only been doing it for a few years (since 2010) so I don't have a lot of data on it assimilated into my brain, however, it seems the best fishing usually coincides with the schedule that will be provided.

White Water Bass Action on Mother's Day!

Between starting to put together a book the past few days, which involves a lot of writing, the bass showing up, and waves, this update is being written in a state of fatigue.  When the ocean turns on, my computer and pretty much all other life turns off.  When it gets really good, which it may within the next week provided the water warms up following a S wind, it gets real hard to do the things that you're supposed to do to be an accepted human being.

Donald and I were talking the other day that all holidays, birthdays, funerals, weddings, etc. should be celebrated in February.  Just make it one 28 day obligation.  It would spice up the winter and get all those nagging commitments out of the way of the fishing time.  It's not like 30lb bass are busting the surface all the time.  Most people have gone to the beach all their lives and have never seen that before.

Will and I spent a good portion of Mother's Day with mother ocean, possibly to the slight disdain of our human mothers.  During the morning of driving and checking, we discovered a lot of bunker spread along the coast.  Of course, the area where the fish were on it was in our backyard, which we discovered after two hours of searching for greener pasture.  We found some fish running through bait around 9:00am with the help of an informant, but there was too much bait and not enough fish.  We parted ways for Mother's Day.  I said if you have a window left today, make it between 3:00pm-5:00pm because it always seems like it turns on at that time if it's going to happen.

This is spring bass water.  Clean and green with a SSW wind.  3:30pm.

We met up again around ten minutes to 3:00pm.  The phone rang at 3:00pm.  It was Rick.  I picked up and said we're going to start checking north and work south.  He said there was fish on the beach where he was at.  Ok we're going there.  I tapped on the clock in my car, see Will, 3:00pm, right on schedule.

We arrived and didn't see anything, but I've been through this before and knew they were around, they were probably just moving fast.  And that they were.  Moving real fast.  We eventually met up with some others a block down, when all of a sudden the water erupted right in front of us.  By the time the snags and poppers hit the water they were gone.  Will, did you see that?  They're here!  But they're gone already.  Damn.

That always signals to me, start looking north and south, because when the fish are in, they are usually in other areas.  It was hard to tell in the wind and chop and cloud shadows, but it looked like purple water was turning white around 1/4 mile north.  Then it looked like someone backed a dump truck of bowling balls into the water.  Sprint!  I got my popper into the mix just in time.  Bang!  A bass tail slapped the popper 3ft into the air!  I stopped all movement when the plug landed.  A huge blow up and then another and finally a hook up for my first bass of the 2012 spring season.

I like a bottle neck popper better than a pencil popper in a stiff side shore wind, it feels like it holds better.  This bass agreed.

What a rush!  As soon as it began it was over, and no one else in our group got any fish.  A scan through the binoculars revealed frothing white water about a mile and a half up the beach.  Let's go!  We arrived and saw bass blowing up the surface like crazy . . . Two casts out in a stiff SSW wind.  This was going on for two hours I was told.  They would get close, but then move out.  It was nice just to be able to see a display of life.

Wading out to a bar for blind casting.  Blind casting after the surface action settles down is a proven technique.

After taking Will back, he was surely in trouble, I heard Shell E had picked up a nice bass by blind casting.  That's why there were ten people standing in a line casting like crazy and not catching anything when I returned.  It was rumored that JM had a blow up.  I was good, I got a fish, and it looked like things were settling out.

There hasn't been any action since Sunday, at least locally, due to S winds and upwelling.  When the wind first changes to S it can be great, especially in the spring for some reason.  But more than 24 hours of S wind and forget it.  Today is Tuesday, the wind was S today, Monday, and Sunday, so I probably won't be fishing until Friday or the weekend.  And there's no W following, only a wrap around to NE and E.  Usually there is a W wind after a frontal S, not this time, so this will be a new one to compute.

Tour of the Shore

Will convinced me to ignore the customary responsibility of work to make a day with the responsibility of finding the best waves and best fishing along the northern Jersey shore.  During the warm season I allot myself a few spur of the moment vacation days per month, because I am under the impression that we are to work to live and not live to work.  I checked to make sure there weren't any immediate things to attend to, of course, before making the call to devote a day to the best of what the shoreline has to offer.

The problem, as there always seems to be one, was that I felt it was going to be tough to break the spell of mediocre that has been plaguing the area recently.  The waves have only been so-so, the fishing started out last week but has since been quiet, a front has been stuck overhead for at least 12 days give or take with the same blah 60F weather and chilly E wind.  I notice a lot of my mood is tied into the weather, so after a near record warm winter and record warm March, the moderation of temperature since the final third of April has left me deflated without spring mania.


The epitome of mediocre.  2-3ft+ lumpy swell, light onshore wind, mostly cloudy, 50F air and 50F water.

The tour began right at home with some pretty fun 2-3ft+ glassy mix swell.  A little bit of W wind and sunshine would have made it, but in New Jersey you take what you can get.  There were some fun little sections to play with- and it wasn't closing out- but I couldn't help wonder what there was elsewhere on the coast, to the point of distraction.  So after a bit, my curiosity got to me and we headed to the next spot . . . There is a phrase in fishing that also applies to surfing . . . Don't leave fish to find fish . . .

Because the next spot was junk.  The wind had picked up from the SSE and chop was already imposed onto the weak swell.  When you're sitting in a damp wetsuit in 59F air contemplating paddling out in warbly chopped up 3ft waves you start to think of something else to do.  So we did, and cruised the beach looking for bunker, but found none.  It was time to fish, and I said the only place worth looking is 'up north' since it doesn't look like there was much around here, but it would take a commitment.  We saw Wayne on the way out.  His advice was to go 'up north' and that 'everyone is going up there'.  That was easy.  A tour of the shore was decided.

During the era when these buildings were operational, electroshock therapy was a conventional form of psychotherapy.  I'd redline the machine everyday if I worked in this facility.

We hit the northern coast and began spot checks with binoculars.  Some people make fun of the binoculars thing, but I will admit I am still at the level where I am impatient and want to catch fish the entire time fishing, even if it needs the aid of superhuman eyesight.  It's a relative gripe, however, as I despise fish finders in boats, so whatever.  It went as follows: nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, bunker on the beach getting pushed around!  Didn't even need the binoculars for that one.

After a short walk to the water we did some popping but couldn't raise a fish.  A truck size school of bunker was hugging the beach, meanwhile a school at the end of a long cast was looking 'nervous'.  It looked real good.  When the outside school turned white and made a rain sound I shouted to Will they're here.  A couple more slashes went through the bait and I aimed my Gibbs popper straight at it.  Unfortunately, the 17mph side shore wind took my plug off course. That's not always a bad thing, but it didn't work this time.  The bunker were getting pushed around pretty good.  I could barely reach the froth, and Will was coming up short with too light of a lure.

We spent the next hour and a half engrossed in mediocre fishing.  At least there were good visuals.  The bunker were moving up and down the beach, schooling and separating, but there just didn't seem to be a lot of fish on them.  We walked up and down the beach several times popping and snagging, but couldn't hook up.  It looked like it was about to erupt, there was a lot of tension, but it just wouldn't get out of gear.  Finally a school of bunker got slashed in front of me and I hooked up on a nice ~8lb bluefish.  My first fish from the surf this year!

It was just Will and I and one other soul fishing the bunker this day and the other guy was using clams.  To our north and west were 22,000,000 people in the New York City Combined Statistical Area that were not fishing with us.

More casting, snagging, popping, and walking back and forth and back and forth.  There just didn't seem to be many predators, but it had that look like it would go big time any minute so we couldn't leave it.  There was a chorus of 'don't leave fish to find fish' in my head after the morning surf session.  I landed another blue on my favorite Gibbs popper that I found on the beach walking my dog seven years ago.  Will tried snagging and went back to popping.  He finally hooked up on a blue, but dropped it in the wash, at least after a decent time fighting it.

The wind started to pick up some more and the bunker were getting hard to spot so we decided to leave.  We checked quite a few more spots on the way back to the meeting area, but saw nothing fishy.  A stiff SSE wind and gray skies made it hard to see into the water, but there was no obvious action at any of the other spots, so that was it for the day.

Average waves and average fishing is an alright day by my standards.  It was a good day and a very nice tour of the shore.

It's Official

I walked up to the beach late in the morning on April 29th and saw miles of purple water for the first time this year.  I walked back home and got the binoculars to spy a nearly endless string of bunker two casts out- in default position- as far as I could see north and south.  'Nothing on it' but the sight of the inky bunker school contrasting with clear, green water and a bright, but cool, spring sun was a nice sight.  Therefore, I am marking April 29th as the official beginning of the 2012 spring surf fishing season.

It's hard to photgraph splashing bunker from way up on the dunes, but see if you can spot the signature flip.

I used to wear pants until June and shorts until Christmas when I was a kid.  What that means is that changing gears away from what I am into and into something else is not one of my best attributes.  That is my excuse for missing the first day of good action this week.  Driving up the ocean road with a modest east wind, clean water, low clouds and whatever else- it just had that feel the fish were feeding.  And they were.

I got the missed it report, and was informed of a few big bass and then big blues.  From what I gathered, they came in waves and if you kept blind casting even when it appeared there was nothing there, it was possible to keep raising fish.  Phrases like 'he had a big one on the beach when I got there' and 'I had a 30 pounder' echo what the regulars told me.  It was on and off throughout the day and snagging took fish early.  That was enough to transition me into it.

As it is with the spring bass fishing, there is dualism.  Scoring a heart racing bite of 30lb bass at sprint pace is countered by lazy hours spent staring at bunker schools and gabbing with fellow bipolar thrill seekers.  It's very much like being a fireman- you stand around talking about gear and fixing things up- then the bell rings and it's a sprint to the water to get the first snag or pop.  Then you lose your mind and self and scream instead of talk to communicate from the adrenalin.  Then it's a high that lasts all night and gets you up at 5:00 am to do it again.  Then you're back staring at bunker for hours and falling asleep.

It is on.