Finchaser fishing hole?

[DarkSkies]

Does It exist or is it part of a
legend?

Sometimes folks scratch their heads when they hear he got a dozen bass to the teens on a night when they can't even find one.
They might be more surprised if they knew the actual numbers...
on the most productive night fish beyond your wildest dreams....more bait varieties
than you could imagine.

so how could this be possible?

Does one of the old farts work at a bagel factory....... and they just sit there and throw bread to the salt water carp all night long to keep them around?:don't know why:
or are we just making up stories To make people jealous?

[hookset]

From the way it was described I thought it was like one of the ghosts of sandy hook a mere legend. Alternately they had an inside connection to the fish tank at cabelas and were fishing when the store closed at night.:)

[finchaser]

Have been at it 55 years and have spent countless hours and sleepless days and nights logging by trial and era the feeding habits and locations of bass in different weather conditions . Like people they return to the same great restaurants.


While other search the web for reports and are obsessed with custom wood paint jobs that till this day really doesn't resemble any bait fish I see.



:don't know why:Only reason I post reports is DS asked me too to pass on what works for me , so if you don't believe me I can stop in the blink of an eye:HappyWave:

Hookset I didn't think you saw me at Cabela's when I was leaving and you were arriving

[surferman]

Hey that sounds awesome a cabelas midnight connection lol! fin chaser I have been following your reports as long as I have been a member here. No doubt on my part that you catch a lot. You also seem to fish a lot too. I can only fish once a week. Sometimes once every 2 weeks. Lately before the storm I had been lucky to catch some stripers around structure. before that it was not that good. When I read how you are out in every kind of weather I have to tip my hat to you sir. You put in the hours. You catch the fish. congrats to you on all that effort. thank you for your tips about rubber too it has helped me to fish the structure in the back better. :fishing:

[surferman]

While other search the web for reports and are obsessed with custom wood paint jobs that till this day really doesn't resemble any bait fish I see.



totally agree with this quote. There are endless debates on the web about custom plugs and how they bring home the cows. Someone said long ago that elephants eat peanuts.

[finchaser]

I fish at least once a day minimum usually twice a day in fall

[DarkSkies]

^Yep he does....... folks.....some have a hard time believing the actual numbers.....sometimes he does so well he doesn't report because few others are in the position to fish that much.....and would not believe.......
When no one else is fishing...he and the Old Salts are out there in bad weather anyway....there are times they're out there and fail miserably......because that's the nature of fishing...in the year 2015....yet they're still at it......up to twice a day. :thumbsup:

A far cry from what it used to be in the late 80's.....or the early 70's.....for those who can remember back that far....:learn:

[DarkSkies]

In order to understand...how he does so well now......you would have to understand the evolution of his fishing style...and the dues he and the other Old Salts had to pay....to get where they are today.......
Without the internet or Facebook......
Back in the Cave Man days......:laugh: :HappyWave:

I have the outline....there's 4 basic areas I'm gonna cover here....
With authentic pics of the old salts....
And embarassing stories...all part of the journey......

[DarkSkies]

** FYI -Disclaimer.......this is for entertainment purposes only.....
The catches, numbers....and fish sizes are real.....only the locations..... old salt pics, and descriptions have been changed/embellished...if that mis-information is offensive to some....or you just don't believe that the numbers stated here are possible....please move on from this thread.... :) :HappyWave:

Thanks for reading....:thumbsup:





The stages I'll talk about........
1. Long Branch Fishing Pier Days
2. The Younger years
3. Middle Age and Crowds
4. The Good life.......Present Day w/ the Old Salts

[DarkSkies]

For those who want to know what the Old Grouchy Basstid looks like...if ya haven't met him already......there are a few pics I can share.....:)

here's one of many.......
Exclusive Finchaser pic......

[DarkSkies]

^ There seems to be a lot of interest in what the OGB looks like.......;)...plenty more pics are coming, stay tuned...:)

As mentioned, I'll break it down into the parts I talked about above......starting with....

1. Long Branch Fishing Pier Days



The OGB and few notorious characters he came to know.....Joe Melillo...3 Fingers Pete..the Sowul Family..Freddy Jr and Sr....Matty, Dottie, Dolly, Reggie, Cooper, Chet, Dominick Digirolamo, Charlie, Mark Ballocco, Gary and Brian Burda, Joe Sarosi, Paulie Rubino....etc...etc.....spent many of their days since childhood fishing that pier....or later on meeting each other in various fishing clubs.... one of them Joe LoPresti's Stevens Surfsters, and others....

In the 50's through the 70's...it was THE place to be for a consistent bite, year round, on most of NJ's targeted species...and even a few that weren't targeted...accidentally hooked.....whales...giant rays, sharks, etc.....

The Pier also mentioned in an earlier thread...
http://stripersandanglers.com/Forum/showthread.php?5550-Long-Branch-back-in-time

[DarkSkies]

A core group of hardcore anglers.....were the life blood of that pier.....stories changed each week....but the cast of characters was usually a small group of die hard fishermen...out there in all kinds of weather......
Some pics of the pier from the thread above.....also thanks to www.historiclongbranch.org (http://www.historiclongbranch.org)



Looking Eastward at the first 2 pics, the front left corner shown in the first one is allegedly one of the hotspots where the old salts used to hang out.

The two pics at the very bottom can also be found if you google (http://www.historiclongbranch.org)https://www.google.com/#q=%22old+timer+long+branch+fishing+pier+

[plugcrazy]

Never fished there but my uncle did. He had lots of stories of catching whiting in the winter. Wish we could catch them now.

[DarkSkies]

^Those were great times....Unfortunately I was chasing skirts back then and missed out.....such is life...
Moving onward to the next phase of the OGB history....

The Younger Years...

** Note, the following pics are representative of Old Salts who fished years ago....they may or not coincide with the narrative of this thread.

These were the years after the Long Branch Pier burned down...but in some cases coincided with those years......

The years before the Internet....before there was even a World wide web...with Sysops and Bulletin Boards....Do any readers remember those? :don't know why:
When the only way to tell if there were fish out there...was to go out and fish.....:learn:
Imagine that....actually casting a line in the water....going from place to place.....learning patterns and trying to define them in your hand written log book...usually some tattered note-book that you wrote things down in pencil or pen....stained from coffee, hot chocolate, and donut smudges......
(In Finchaser's case, his log books had chocolate stains from the peanut butter and tasty cakes he was known to hide away for a night of fishing....) :)

[DarkSkies]

Yep the old salts were a grizzled bunch.....here are candid shots of some of his fishing buddies....:rolleyes: :HappyWave:



That's when the jetty and inlet fishing was at it's prime.....

When you could go out on a (great) night of fishing and catch and release close to 1000 lbs of fish....almost all bass.....The numbers and sizes were such..that if you caught a teen bass and tried to bring it in to a tackle shop for bragging rights....most of the old salts would laugh at you......The "cows" that people talk about today....had to be at least 30 lbs back then to qualify....

[DarkSkies]

These grizzled Old Salts....were hard to impress. They did develop a following....some of the local women thought they were studs....and followed them from beach to beach hoping to get in on some of the famed surf action. :pig:
This was the cause of divorce for many of the dedicated Surfsters back in the day......;)


And they loved to play pranks on each other....
True Story..
One of his buddies decided to play a prank on one of the other Old Salts....
They told the wife her husband had a girlfriend on the side while he was fishing...
One night he was out there on the rocks fishing...they put a real life size blowup doll in the cab of his truck....
The wife drives by.....doesn't get a close enough look to see it's a blowup doll...
When their "friend" got home there was hell to pay....:beatin:
Lots of questions to be answered....:argue:
Isn't it nice....when you have friends who care? :laugh:



There's another story where one of the motley crew... brought a hooker out on a jetty one night...as a "present" for one of his friends.....
I can't go into more details about that...it is a true story.....bizarre, but true.

[DarkSkies]

Let's focus on that magical period in time for now.....the golden years.
20-30 fish a night from the jetties or inlets was the norm on a good night.........

I got to know Steve Kalek (2nd pic below) after he moved to Alaska....to some he is known as Alaskan Steve....

There were other characters....Fin...Joe Melillo...Joe's son Jojo.....J Sarosi...Mark B.
"J" ...who you never wanted to mug when he was on a jetty....he did throw some guys in the water who disagreed with his perception of "mugging"......
Bam Bam Bigelow (RIP) who was the same way with the Asbury Park Jetty....Bobby Matthews...Billy McFadden.....Mike Commune.. Jerry Riedenger.....Sergio.....Geno A....etc...just to mention a few.

The stories of these Old Salts....some funny, some crazy....some with encounters close to death...are too numerous to mention.......
They'll all be showcased in a better venue someday......when I get a chance to put some of this together....:HappyWave:




These pics from onthewater.com, article titled Midnight Mosaic show just one night's catch for a jetty fisherman who fished Hathaway in jetty country....back in the 70's.

Below that, is Steve Kalek dragging a large bass near 4th Ave Asbury.
http://www.onthewater.com/midnight-mosaic/


(http://www.onthewater.com/midnight-mosaic/)

[DarkSkies]

You would have blitzes on the beach....Spring and Fall...that lasted a day or days at a time....as previously mentioned in a few threads here......

Fish in the morning....go to work....come back at lunch to catch a few more if you worked close to the water......then after work.....a mid afternoon to late evening bite.


Yep the fish were so abundant....you could catch 50-100 in a day.....
If you were looking for bragging rights among your friends...you wouldn't consider weighing a fish unless it was over 20 lbs....the era of big bass......fishing the night tides.....out on the jetties all night for the night bite of bigger fish....fishing the inlets in bad weather and storms....the Old Salts endangering themselves......in good weather and bad....because some of them were so addicted....this was the most exciting thing for them to be doing......

They also made the trek to Montauk and Cape Cod...for the middle of the Spring Run..and the Start of the Fall one.....instead of catching one or two fish, 20lb class...they found fishermen catching bass by the wheelbarrow full.....
This was truly a time of abundance....one that folks never thought would change.....

Below is a pic of the Woolner Brothers on one of the Cape Cod beaches....Catches like this were the norm for a lot of people who fished up there.....

[DarkSkies]

Some find it hard to understand....
How these guys could be so devoted to fishing...when for most folks nowadays....a "trip" lasts an hour or two....
These Salts were fishing at a great time in American Striped Bass history....in the late 60's into the 70's....there was an abundance of bass that most could never conceive of...unless you were there....

To see you and your trusted buddies..haul 30 and 40 lb fish off the rocks at night....not just one fish...but multiple large fish......They knew the tides...they knew the bites...and shared only with people who could keep their mouths shut....it was definitely a close, very tight group......or groups....They did not take kindly to outsiders...... And were careful about sharing intel.....

[DarkSkies]

They were so careful that sometimes they placed a "Decoy vehicle" at a location where the fish were alleged to be.....
left that vehicle, and drove with friends in another vehicle to the place where the real bite was.....
Yep these were some tight lipped Old Salts.....they knew how to keep a bite silent.....In the internet age, with personal facebook and internet sites......that dedication to silence seems to have been forgotten or minimized......

[DarkSkies]

There was a type of ethic back then.....that you had to "work" for your fish....that was something to be proud of...to a large extent...that doesn't seem to exist today...like it did back then.

[hookset]

Nice read thanks for sharing. Like the part about working for the fish so true. Why would you want to go out a few times, get skunked, and then when you finally hook up call some friends and do all the work for them. If they want fish they should be out working for them too.

[hookset]

For those who want to know what the Old Grouchy Basstid looks like...if ya haven't met him already......there are a few pics I can share.....:)

here's one of many.......
Exclusive Finchaser pic......


I see that one of finchaser's haunts is ocean grove lol. Yeah I would not put a real pic up either. The report chasers will be following him all over even when he goes to take a leak.

[cowherder]

Yeah I would not put a real pic up either. The report chasers will be following him all over even when he goes to take a leak.



They were so careful that sometimes they placed a "Decoy vehicle" at a location where the fish were alleged to be.....
left that vehicle, and drove with friends in another vehicle to the place where the real bite was.....
Yep these were some tight lipped Old Salts.....they knew how to keep a bite silent.....In the internet age, with personal facebook and internet sites......that dedication to silence seems to have been forgotten or minimized......


Hookset not if he gets a decoy vehicle. haha loved that great strategy.

[seamonkey]

I can't imagine catching all those fish in one night. Thanks for sharing.

[finchaser]

There was a type of ethic back then.....that you had to "work" for your fish....that was something to be proud of...to a large extent...that doesn't seem to exist today...like it did back then.

Hey Hey I resent that:don't know why: we still put in many hours:HappyWave:

[DarkSkies]

Yeah, and last night you mentioned for the 2nd time you guys drink hot cocoa when ya fish!
Was there ever hot cocoa on the party boats you fished for cod on, when you were 5 years old?
What did your father tell ya?
Toughen up, and no complaining!
(imagine saying that to a 5 year old today) :kooky:




Definitely different times we're living in today....;) :moon: :kiss:
I have some more good stories...
there have been so many comments made about the finchaser fishing hole lately that I thought some of ya's would appreciate more posts in this thread.....
And yes......you old farts do still put in many hours....sometimes fishing twice a day....for nothing....:fishing:

Will come back here when I get a chance...:HappyWave:

[finchaser]

:beatin: http://stripersandanglers.com/Forum/images/smilies/moon.gif

[seamonkey]

Love the stories about the old times vs today. Keep em coming.

[DarkSkies]

^ Cmon Fin, did ya think I'm gonna clue them in to the exact GPS? :kiss:
**Disclaimer - the actual Finchaser fishing hole, exists merely in readers' minds...it changes with the Seasons....Time...Tide...and Bait Migration......:fishing:
Most people would not want to take the time to put all this together...it takes work..working the brain cells....and it's not discoverable from internet or facebook reports.....

That being said, I can still create the story of him and the Old Farts....catching fish beyond what many could believe possible...because they fish every day...sometimes twice daily....and have a lot of empty time when there are no fish.....they're still out there anyway....:thumbsup:

Moving forward.....
I'll post a little at a time when I can....
hope ya's enjoy the stories....and the entertainment.....:HappyWave:

[DarkSkies]

For the most part....they concentrated in monmouth and ocean counties....

The jetties and inlets were all they needed to catch some fish....
Many a night they would be out there for the duration.......

He and his pals also fished all up and down the Coast.....
they did make the seasonal runs to Montauk and Cape Cod...


The following are some of the places that some of these Old Farts have fished in their travels, at one time or another.....

[DarkSkies]

There were some nights.....one of two of em might have drank a bit too much spirits to ward off the Winter chills....and there was talk they had seen a mermaid or two........:bigeyes:

[bababooey]

Now the mermaids I like! She's a hottie. Could really get into that siren of the sea. Keep em coming!:HappyWave:

[J Barbosa]

After many years of searching I finally ******* found it!!!

Kauai, Hawaii

GPS 22.0833? N, 159.5000? W


http://youtu.be/qtH48iKHxW0

[storminsteve]

:headbang:Rofl good job you even posted the gps! Now all we have to do is fly to hawaii.

[VSdreams]

I put those numbers in my garmin and they are not in nj. Someone's trying to pull a fast one.:beatin:
Great thread with some history mixed in. Nice job keep em coming.

[buckethead]

There was a type of ethic back then.....that you had to "work" for your fish....that was something to be proud of...to a large extent...that doesn't seem to exist today...like it did back then.

Yes, and when we did find a good bite we were hesitant to share it with the world like they do now. We told those in our circle and that was it. The ones most in the know were the older guys who sat around the tackle shops chewing the fat. That was the real source of quality intel.

[seamonkey]

I have heard a lot about some of those shops. Before my time. Would have been nice to be a fly on the wall just to hear some of the crazy stories.

[finchaser]

Yes, and when we did find a good bite we were hesitant to share it with the world like they do now. We told those in our circle and that was it. The ones most in the know were the older guys who sat around the tackle shops chewing the fat. That was the real source of quality intel.

So true now we're the old guys:huh::(

[storminsteve]

^^ The students become the teachers. Cycle of life?
That's what you get with with old age and experience!
I want the experience where you gents were bailing tons of fish all night like I read here many times. Wish I could take a time transport back to those days.:drool:

[DarkSkies]

Finchaser fishing hole still going strong.

He got a few teen fish this week... the old fashion way... Working a few hours for each of them.
Proud of ya, pal....good job.:clapping:

[DarkSkies]

Time to add to the legend. Will come back and add more when I get a chance...

[bababooey]

Over and under says it's 2 weeks before you add to it.:rolleyes:

[porgy75]

From the way it was described I thought it was like one of the ghosts of sandy hook a mere legend. Alternately they had an inside connection to the fish tank at cabelas and were fishing when the store closed at night.:)
haha good one! Even if its a fish tank at Cabela's or Bass Pro I'm in.

[cowherder]

Finchaser you fish in OC, right? I saw this comment on the net and wondered if they were referring to you?

"OC out back, Didn't land anything. Had a blast learning retrieve cadence from some sharpies. they also schooled me on catching too. Fish were there, but slow."

[finchaser]

Yes I do may have been we try to teach a lot of the younger guys you don't need a cell phone to catch fish

[cowherder]

Good deal. The way dark talks about it I thought it was you had a secret after hours pass to Jenkinson's Aquarium LOL.

[finchaser]

Good deal. The way dark talks about it I thought it was you had a secret after hours pass to Jenkinson's Aquarium LOL.

Nothings sacred anymore

[hookset]

I heard they have 2 secret underground storage tanks.
One they keep gator blues in. The other they keep medium size bluefin in to feed the bluefish to. Surprised FC is not getting in on some of that action.:HappyWave:

[DarkSkies]

Good stuff, people. Have been a little busy with other projects lately....not much time to maintain the site....but rest assured I will be finishing this thread......lots of good details to come....thanks for your patience and helping to add to it...:HappyWave: