Everything but the Sharks

Saturday night wasn't a good night for sharking if the only goal is catching a shark, but it was possibly the safest night to go swimming in the ocean at night.  The meteorological and social alignment of conditions on Saturday night was about as good as it can get.  The E swell was done, the water was clean and weed free, green, warm, the tide was at a decent time, there was no chance of thunderstorms and the air temperature was perfect.  Bait was plentiful, excessive, the best chum pot design yet was deployed. 

And then a great crew consisting of Vinny, Jesse, and Jeff came down and added more smell to the rods tended by Doug, Will, and myself.  Timmy arrived after work and added a 7th rod to what was likely the largest agglomeration of bunker oil, chum, and bluefish chunks on the entire Jersey Shore that evening.  The glow tips were on, the wire-mono rigs were tied, and the sand spikes were driven into the hard sand with a mallet.  The coolers were filled with enough bait to keep 7 rods going for hours with a hot bite.

Fishing was cancelled for Friday night, but the weather looked much better Saturday.  Summer thunderstorms are yet another hurdle that also includes dealing with disappointment and gigantic 'trash fish'.

I arrived at the beach around 7:00pm and set up the camp and chum slick.  The method was cutting up bunker and bluefish into small pieces and mixing them with bunker oil, as well as putting bunker oil on the hull of the kayak.  Once I had a plastic bag worth, I paddled out in the oil and blood coated kayak to throw handfuls of fish parts into the water.  The most important thing is not being concerned about what could possibly come from sitting on a 10ft lure, it's getting the placement of the chum to work with the wind.  After about three trips over an hour, oil slick water extended from the beach to about 200 yards out- perfect.  Will arrived with the chum pot right at dark and set it just outside of casting range.  A large buoy marked its place and we couldn't help but think of it being like a big bobber.

The first lines went out around sunset, and Vinny and crew were due to arrive shortly.  Once they made it and the rigging was done there was a solid wall of 6 lines.  It was finally time to relax from the hours of prep work, but it didn't take long for something to jiggle my rod and make the line slack.  The sharks don't always slam the rod- just as often it's tap-tap-slack so it's important to be diligent.  I got the slack out, felt the weight and hammered it home!  A few minutes into battle without any shaking begs the question, is it a sting ray?  Followed by I think it's a ray, no, wait, maybe a shark, no definitely a ray, it's a ray, wait, no it could be a shark, I can see it, it's a ray.  It's not the same as those fake scratch-off tickets, but fighting a ray before it's positively a ray is still a thrill.  This one was a butterfly ray that had at least a 5ft wing span!

Back to re-baiting and waiting, drinking a few beers, talking, re-setting lines, impatient active bait fishing.  Timmy arrived and added another rod to the chain, but couldn't break the stiffness of the rod tips.  Later on, however, Doug's rod silently bent in half.  Go go go!  Doug set up on his fish and headed south.  Lines out!  Lines out! The lines were cleared and everyone assembled around Doug.  I put the backpack on.  Too bad when we discovered it was another ray, but it was still a nice battle before it broke the leader off in the wash.

The only off-factor I could think of- I know somtimes it's just the fish aren't there- but it seems the beach profile has evolved into a very gentle slope which means there isn't much deep water.

So Saturday night was officially the safest night to go swimming in the dark.  A chum slick, a chum pot, 7 lines in the water, but not one shark or potential shark over half of the night.  I wanted to keep the energy high, but the nagging thought I had was that the water was possibly too shallow since the beach has taken on a gently sloping profile.  There wasn't a problem casting 'over the bar' because there wasn't one.  The problem was that without a bar there is no 'back of the bar' which is a real nice structure to have.  I much prefer the steep slope on the backside of the bar to a flat bottom, but they get sharks in Little Egg Harbor (the bay) from what I hear so maybe it doesn't matter, but it still felt off.  The shallow bottom far out was affirmed when Will and I did a fluke session in the kayak the next day.  It didn't take much line to get to the bottom.  A keeper fluke didn't mind it, though, which made for a pretty nice Sunday lunch.

The small blues/bait gathering bite was hot at least.  Sand eels are holding the fish in the surf.

At least the small bluefish bite was really good.  It's a lot more fun to catch bait then to buy it, especially when the bait is acquired with a rod and reel.  The blues were in all day on sand eels and rain fish.  A 1oz sting silver and 1oz Hopkins filled up the cooler in no time, but the sharks never emptied it.  So there is the summer supply of bait for the crab traps.  Shark fishing stands so far at 0 for 2.  The next moon is the full moon on 4th of July week.  What would stoke the tourist population more, a 120lb shark on the beach or hecho en China fireworks?  The mystique of the shark supersedes culture divide.

Gearing up for Shark Fishing while the Waves Hopefully Calm Down

What a spell of E swell.  I can't remember the last day that I didn't surf or where I wasn't thinking about going surfing.  You get a high pressure to sit somewhere in eastern Canada or near Greenland for a week and a low from Hatteras to Bermuda for a week and a front stuck behind in the Midwest and you get a lot of E windswell and no W wind.  It wasn't a storm swell, it was a pattern swell.  Finally the weather is shifting into a new pattern, which looks to include some W wind sea breezes and smaller waves.  With a new moon yesterday, that means it's time to shark Thursday and Friday.

Tropical Storm Chris recently formed from in the blob of low pressure that's been out there for a week.  It's weird to want it to go flat, but I'd rather shark than surf 2ft E swell that isn't good for waves or fishing.

The fishing potential is looking fairly good for tomorrow and even better on Friday.  What is needed is for the swell to keep dropping, the water to clean up, and for the seaweed to settle out.  They seem to like calmer water that is clean without junk clogging the line.  Maybe that is just my preference to fish when it is nicest, but the best nights have all had those conditions.  Another good thing right now is the bar is looking pretty good.  It looks easy to reach the back of it since there isn't much of a trough, yet there are enough dips and folds in the bar to provide some subtle structure.  I remember the first night when I got a grasp on this thing, Tom out-fished me like 3 slams to 1 tap.  We noticed there was a little dip in the bar in front of him, while the bar in front of me was straight.  It was getting late and we were ready to leave so I cast in his spot- and within 5 minutes I had my rod bent and my line snapped clean.  Even the smallest variation of bottom can make a difference.

If it's a go the fishing will take place with a sultry summer heat wave.  If we get into fish, those pesky bass that have been around here this year can go put on their LL Bean button shirts and boat shoes and drink martinis on Cape Cod for all I care.  Nothing beats sharking a summer night.

The hazy white skies this morning indicated a heat wave, and the temperature looks to be pretty hot for the events.  Meteorological summer began June 1st, but now it is feeling the summer-summer, which means I'm not going to spring fish unless they're in my backyard- no driving and driving and driving.

The focus the next two days will be on catching small blues and chunking them up in the night tide . . .

Another Spell of East Wind Weather

A stalled out pattern has put the area under another spell of E wind weather.  The thing I noticed when I was down south, like in southern North Carolina or Florida, is that you can have an onshore wind and the waves will build up, and then the waves can get smaller while the wind is still onshore.  That's a southern thing, to have a windswell drop under remaining onshore wind.  In the Mid-Atlantic, since weather is supposed to be based more on extratropical cyclones, the wind will usually change direction as the cyclone moves through, so that the peak of the swell will usually occur with a changing wind direction, and the swell will drop under a different wind, usually westerly.  Since there isn't really a cyclone moving through right now, with the weather being more of a 'flow', a southern thing, the wind will likely linger from the E and the swell will drop under it, like this is Georgia.

Another junky E spell means junky fishing conditions are likely in the local area.

I'm not saying it's not possible, but I've never gone up after three days of E wind and nailed giant bass and blues in brown water with seaweed, casting over a swell pounding on the bar.  The nice thing is high pressure is finally moving in and the lingering low clouds have cleared out, so at least the everlasting junky ocean will look prettier under a sunny sky.  The rain stops, the weather clears up, and the winds stays the same direction.  If I wanted to live with lame weather like that I'd move to Barbuda- E trade winds again, chance of showers, E trade winds again, again, again. 

I did get word today from a master of data that the fish did come in and they came in good, on Tuesday.  Things like 'I was a few blocks away and missed it' and 'He had three lures tangled up in his line' and 'He said it was epic' was the summary.  Sounds like that pesky thing the spring bass can do, coming in and tearing up one area, leaving the people dry who are putting time in, while a crowd swarms and casts lines on top of each other.  It sometimes happens like that, but I was told the people who got it had a great event with numerous big fish over a span of hours.  Even though I can't remember where I was that day, I'm glad it at least happened somewhere.  I don't really feel bad about missing a bass bite if it's not in 'my area'.  If that was in my backyard and I missed it, I'd be sore about it, unless I was working which is my only time to relax from fishing.

The conclusion is that the spell of E wind is not the best, but not the worst since the fish have been around and the waves aren't likely to get huge, just a moderate 2-3-4ft.  I am holding no hope, which ensures that I will not be disappointed.

Fun Waves, Shark Sighting, Fun Small Blues, One Surf Bass, Big Boat Bass!

The past week was the real Jersey Shore experience.  A little of this and a little of that, variety, like how Seaside Heights is next to Seaside Park or Asbury Park is next to Deal.  The series of events followed the listing in the title- and the first two happened at the same time:

Fun Waves and Shark Sighting

A high pressure NE windswell in the middle of the week was caused from a stationary high near Greenland.  The fetch of winds was as parallel to shore as could be which produced the maximum angle of NE, meaning fun lefts.  With the near 70F water, it reminded me of high pressure NE swell in Florida.

Doug and I used a day off work to take advantage of a fun looking ENE swell with a W wind.  Unlike the swell last weekend, this swell was more from one direction and spaced better, which made more sense.  The thing about surfing is, it is not really a team sport so I either like surfing with my friends, people that suck, or alone so I can get the most waves.  I chose the first, and Doug and I found a fun looking setup for ourselves.

The tide was a little fat, but the waves were fun and it felt great to surf the warm water without a wetsuit.  We're trading off waves, just the two of us, for about two hours.  As we're outside waiting for a set, sitting way out there, we're both looking out to the horizon.  Then Doug said, "Uhh, do you see that?"  Before I even looked, I knew it.  There was no set coming so it wasn't in reference to a wave.  Damn I thought.  Bluefish or herring or something popping the water all around us the whole time.  I look where he's looking and see a fin cruise down just under the surface only 20 feet away.  Like the time when Tom saw a shark when we were on the kayaks, it was just a look at each other and a mutual unspoken uhh let's go in, like now.  Doug and I paddled fast but silent and of course this was the only time of the whole session when there were no waves.  Doug showed me his racing heart through his rib cage when we got to shore.  I wasn't nervous, but I never looked back, just fixed my eyes on the beach.

He described it as 3-5ft with a black tip.  It caught his eye when he saw the fin cruising along the top, alone, and not doing the up and down thing like a dolphin.  And then we're out of the water and here is this super fun looking set with three lefts that rip all the way into the beach.  My first thought is to forget the shark, let's go down the beach a little and keep surfing!  Just then the wind started picking up onshore and the wave quality quickly got crumbly.  We scanned with the binoculars but couldn't find it.  The wind picked up some more anyway so we called it a day.  Then I told Doug that half an hour before the fin I saw a weird swirl down the line on a right I didn't take, where I was like 'what was that'?

Fun Small Blues

Shark food showed up everywhere in the surf this week.  The next day after the sighting, I went up with a small metal and filled the freezer with small blues and herring for later use.

Fortunately the shark was small and there was plenty for it to eat since small blues were everywhere.  I went up the next morning with a small metal and had one of my most fun mornings in the surf this spring- with 1-2lb bluefish and herring- I was just happy to get a bite going for more than five minutes.  I stuffed a plastic bag with the four fish I caught in the 20 minutes I had to fish before work.

One Surf Bass

I walked up the next morning excited I would actually catch something again, having forsaken my big rod for a smaller stick for the small blues.  Just to keep things in check, before I started to fish I spied around with the binoculars.  Two miles up the beach was a mile long line of bunker with fish ripping through them.  Hmm that seems like a better place to fish for small blues.  I'll go there.  I got there and it was the classic story of the season in the area- fish busting out of range and getting close but not coming in. 

Fine.  I'll just stand here and fish for blues and herring.  The tactic paid off because just as I was going to leave for work, the bunker got pushed close enough to reach on the end of the best cast.  I quickly switched to a big yellow Gibbs popper and sent it out.  I got just into the school with fish on them.  Pop, pop, pop, I was about 15 feet into the clear water around the school when I hooked in.  Several minutes later I beached a low 20lb bass, the only one that was caught around me.  I packed it in and left on a high note.

Big Boat Bass

In my opinion, the thing about surf fishing is that it can be really disappointing and miserable sometimes.  It's like some old grouchy guy, but they just have a charm to them that is infections or something.  The fish have been in, more up north it seems, but overall they have been staying out.  The kayak is a popular choice, but I gave that up after some thresher sightings, having to carry and transport all the gear, and then what if I'm out there and they hit the beach and I miss a great surf event.  I'd rather do one thing and have the good and bad oscillate all around that.  Unless the other option is going out on the Frederick's Fish Factory.

It takes 10 fish in the boat to equal 1 in the surf, but if there are 0 fish in the surf, then boat fish have no proportional reference, and therefore count.  The snag and drop put 8 bass in the boat, 7 of which made it back into the water.  The LG formula put Doug's fish and my fish around 35lbs.  The rest were 20lb class.

It was a near perfect confluence yesterday that transpired into a nice mellow day of catching big bass.  The fish being there, available time, and good weather.  If I had a lot more time than I already do, I would develop some sort of equation to demonstrate how these three variables work together to create a great day of fishing.  After a couple snags, in both meanings, that resulted in an emergency swim to shore for another rod :) we found a pod of bunker with some fish in them.  I'm not a boat person, but I figured the procedure is 1) find bunker 2) find bunker that looks good 3) snag and drop for one drift 4) if nothing move on and repeat, or keep fishing. 

We did just that.  My first fish hit immediately as I snagged.  At one point there was a double hook up.  We hopped around from school to school doing a slow steady pick of fish.  It was interesting that the pods of bunker that had fish on them didn't really look much different than the pods that didn't, so it was important to fish them.  The total was 8 bass for the boat, 2 30lb fish and the rest 20lb.  With great weather- cloudy then sunny and a perfect wind for the drifts- it was a fine day!

The surf report stayed less than stellar, and after the boat when I started chasing around ghost pods of bunker and suspected rain fish around dinner time, I figured it would be good to end it for the day.  The fish look this morning looked like the same deal with pods of bunker and some fish on them way outside and quiet inside aside from some possible small blues.  It's the greatest plight of the surfcaster that the 'fish are staying out'.  I'm going to check it through the day and try it for small blues for the freezer this evening.

Warm Waves and West Wind beats Lousy Fishing

Sometimes things come together so perfectly you can lose yourself in whatever it is and fly out of this world.  Most of the time, there is some nagging thing wrong with the situation, just to keep you grounded.  So far, in my experience, spring fishing has been pretty lame.  My running count is only two bluefish and three stripers, granted all three stripers were over 35 inches.  With the water already feeling near 70F, I'm starting to begin to forget about the spring fishing thing.  It could still happen, sure, but you can shoot someone in the leg and say, "Well they're still alive at least."  I give it two weeks to heal up and blast us with fish, otherwise this spring is lame.

On the upside, a rather unusual confluence of winds off the beach on Friday produced exceptionally crossed up waves on Saturday . . . with an actual straight W wind.  Not NNW or NW but N over the ocean- this was an actual beautiful and true W wind.  The best W wind I have seen with a swell in I don't remember when.  Here's to remind you this is planet earth, though, because I've never been in the water with such a weird swell.  It was like surfing a shoal.  A set would look like it was coming, then it was over there, now here, then over there.  75% of the waves I paddled for disappeared as I went for them.  It was really fun, but it was off.  There's been a trend of that.

Shifty peaks put on a show all day.  It was better to sit in place rather than paddle around for a wave because they were so fleeting.  Photo credit: Ryan Mahoney.

June 02, 2012 mixed gender swell.  A combination of an E and S, with the E traits a bit more dominant.

The ambiguous swell was neither an E nor a S.  It was a middle gender swell.  A combination of an E and S.  A weak warm front was approaching the coast from the south, which put New Jersey in the E wind section on Friday.  The low over Michigan couldn't decide if it wanted to be an interior storm or a nor'easter, so it seemed there was a cross in the winds.  S wind blew over the ocean a few hundred miles offshore which conflicted with the E.  Normally this is great on the beach breaks, because the cross swell makes peaks that close out less.  I would say the degree of it with this event was a bit outlandish, however, because as mentioned before it was like surfing a shoal where you see the waves slapping together.

Whatever it was, nauseating sea sickness in perfect conditions, there were some good waves to be had in the afternoon:

Will with a sweet doggie-door barrel! Photo credit: Ryan Mahoney

The one who was having the most fun was the one getting the best waves.  I was busy complaining to myself about the stupid current being off and the swell being really annoying, and I had some good waves no doubt, but Will had a much better attitude about it and ended up getting the best photograph sequence when the camera came out.  It must be 'all in your head' after all.  I mean if someone cut your head off, or less gruesomely turned all of your senses off, there wouldn't be much of a world going on 'out there' I presume.  The power of mind control got Will an awesome ride.  Notice the board shorts and top suit combination- it felt more like September after everything has warmed up rather than early summer.

These two small blues spit up sand eels.  Al obviously trying to hold the fish away from his body so it looks bigger.

Small blues were around in the surf the next morning and small metals grabbed a few for the freezer for use as shark bait.  The water had cleaned up significantly and was a clean green during the leftovers surf session.  That the waves were more medium period and less helter-skelter made the session a lot more fun for me so that I didn't want to get out when the lunch bell was sounded.  I know I'm a brat, and I will continue to be until everything is perfect.  I am in rebellion against the acceptance of trash and averageness.

Doug and I decided to take advantage of the very warm water, west winds, and full moon tide last night after the swell leveled out and went for the shark.  I purchased five fresh bunker from his place of business and we chunked them up for one skate and one sand shark.  The sand shark was interesting enough for his guests, so it was cool being out under a bright moon watching lightning over the ocean from a receding thunderstorm.

Looks like a trough will be around for most of the week, which is responsible for the cool showery weather here- it's like squeezing a sponge.  That it is cool here is usually countered by it being hot somewhere else, like an absurd forecast high of 93F in Montana today.  Do you get it yet?  You average the cool and the hot together and you get warm all over even though it's cool somewhere.  I have no predictions for this week and will let it roll.

Up and Down the Ocean Road

Good call!  I was driving onto the beach after work with a report that big fish were blowing up on bunker just out of casting range.  As the ocean came into view while crossing the dune, I saw the signature clean green water and gusty SSW wind chop, but with no waves, all under a dry sunny sky.  Perfect.  And it was 4:30pm.  Perfect.  I saw bunker immediately and figured I would slowly cruise to Donald, who was watching big bass doing the whitewater thing just out of range.  Maybe there was something between him and I, the beach was empty.

I spotted a bus size school of bunker right behind the waves and in range.  This would be a good spot to transition from work mode.  While I was getting out the rods, it was like someone turned the jets on in the hot tub.  Bunkers were flying into the air and I could see the silhouettes of the bass!  And there was no one there!  The next 15 seconds of calling Donald, putting a rod together, and selecting a lure felt like eternity. 

I tried casting a popper, but the wind was putting too much bow in the line, which was bad because the first ten cranks of the reel were most important.  I then opted for the snag.  I snagged a bunker and then the water around it turned full white.  Having a snagged bunker in the middle of frothing whitewater bass is a great feeling.  One, two, THREE!  Ten minutes later a beautiful 45 incher was on the shore and three minutes later it was back in the water.  And just like that it was over.  They moved back out.

There was no time for a picture of the fish.  All I could get was the gnarly bass thumb it gave me.

Stoked on that brief full throttle action, Doug and I scoured the coast hardcore for the next two days.  Up and down the ocean road.  Up and down.  We did more weather clogging and ozone destroying than anything else, and without the offset of epic fish action that starts to perturb me, to be a drain.  We saw plenty of bunker on the outside, in small pods, but it was showing no signs of pushing in.  The mornings were dead, too.  Getting up at 4:30am and searching for two hours, working a full day, and doing it again until 8:30pm and it's no wonder that fishing and 'life' has a lot of clash.

Blind casting around what appeared to be shad was a good idea.  Doug hooked up on a blind cast fish that put a good bend in the rod but lost it.

At least the sky was nice looking on the very early mornings with no fish.

There was word of fish on a neighboring coast.  'Bunker everywhere in range, fish going through them, I had three bunker bit in half and I've been here for three hours.'  Hmmm.  That's a weird report.  In spite of that, the NW wind and dry sky finally showed up so it was worth a travel.  Doug and I met up with Will and started the coast check.  We found an empty beach with fish going through the bunker . . . ten feet past the end of a best cast.  I looked left and right and saw fish going through small pods of bunker everywhere . . . ten feet past the end of a best cast.  'They're going to do this now.  This year sucks!'  I get bitchy when I don't get enough sleep and the fish want to do the tease thing.  We checked a few more beaches and saw everyone standing around watching fish push bunker just out of range.  Stupid.  Rick said he was there all day and caught ten bunker.  Sometimes I hate this activity.

For another consecutive year the water temperature is way warmer than average.

In addition to the stupid fish last night, everyone was talking about how warm the water felt.  Obviously, the water temperature is very much above normal for this time of the year.  There have been some occasions of S wind upwelling, like two weeks ago, but when the surface water comes back it is much warmer.  If it stays like it is with annoying teasing bass and blues (my personal experience so far) it may be worth throwing bunker chunks at night with the full moon next week for other species.  Need more fix!