A Bass and A Lot of Small Bluefish

The first week of the second month of fall (Sep-Nov is meteorological fall) felt great. A string of cool nights and a few cool days is surely starting the exodus of the fishes. A substantial amount of mullet continued to cruise south in the surf, sand eels were concentrated in a few locations, rain fish were also present, and a large school of adult bunker was spotted flipping off the beach. The banquet staff is almost finished setting up the chairs and tables, the chef is nearly done cooking the main course and now we are just waiting for our distinguished guests to arrive. I hit the beach relatively hard this week, excited by the cooler air but knowing the excitement was premature, still it was nice to actively cast through four sunrises in a row.

There were some bass around in the mornings, but there was a real small window, maybe 10 minutes, when they were biting, about 20 minutes before sunrise. I observed this pattern for two consecutive mornings, the first morning I hooked up on a fish and the second morning I missed my shot by goofing up the hook set. Both bites of fish occurred nearly the same time, around 20 minutes before sunrise, and though I saw a few scattered bass popping out of the water on mullet here and there until an hour after sunrise, I couldn’t get another bite. The bass I caught hit hard, fought well and was a healthy looking light backed fish.

My first bass of the fall season commited to an atom popper amidst the mullet

Fishing the fall is about getting there early.  The sunrise will always be a magical time but the time after isn't when the sky is clear- sunglasses.

The mini-bluefish blitzes slowed down during the beginning of the week but picked up during the latter. The amount of small bluefish in the surf right now is amazing. Watching these little fish blitz is akin to watching little kids learn new skills- for many of these young bluefish it is their first time out in the ocean corralling bait, doing the ocean thing. More and more little bluefish joined the party as the week went on, and today, Saturday, was the best day of mini-bluefish action since last Sunday. Had these fish been the real blues, the 4 pound fish and up, the beach would have no doubt been packed with wild-eye anglers, and tackle shop owners would be rejoicing at the prospect of fisherman needing to restock lures. Instead, today could have passed as a summer day because of the weather, the beach was crowded sunbathers, and I got to enjoy running up and down the beach after the little fish without much interference- and without the encumbrance of waders. A 1 oz Hopkins with a feather and a Shell E teaser were getting the job done for double headers. I tried a popper but I think the bluefish were too small for it!

Today was more like practice, but fish feeding heavily no matter how small is always fun.

Though there hasn’t been a cloud in the sky for the past three days, literally, at least the nights have been cool enough to offset the onslaught of sunshine. While a lack of clouds can make days warm, this time of year a longer night and clear skies can make for some significant radiational cooling, and this helped to offset some of the negative effects of this run of Nevada-like weather. The excess sun finally added up today, however, and temperatures are forecast to climb to 80 the next two days before returning to near normal the rest of the week. With overnight lows back into the 60s for the next few days it looks like there will be another week open to take care of commitments before the action really gets going.