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!