NJ Fishing Reports for the Week of 11-10 to 11-16-08

[bunkerjoe4]

Please post fishing reports here.......as little or as much detail as you want to give.

Please note: NO SPOT BURNING! Posts burning spots will be Edited or DELETED!
Some veteran fishermen have put in years developing and learning about certain spots.Some of these spots can only handle a few guys at a time. We are losing enough access as it is, due to the unfortunate behavior of a few selfish people. No sense in making it worse.

For some areas, it would be wiser to say:
OutFront (Ocean) OR -- OutBack (Bay) -- if you feel too many people will figure out what you are talking about. "Spot burning" also could involve mentioning something specific only to that area. If you do this, your post may be edited, or deleted. Remember that thousands of people could potentially read these posts. You don't want to be fishing next to ALL of them at the same time!

IF you are fishing an area that is NOT residential, being vague is less critical. For example, it's acceptable to say (Any)Park, or (Any)Bay, or mention a specific state park that has loads of parking and can handle the crowds.


If you are unclear on this concept, ask yourself:


If I name this place on the internet, will it be too crowded for me to enjoy tomorrow when people hear I got 30 fish here today?


If the answer is "Yes", then you should probably not be so specific.


We post these reports so our community will have a sense of what is working, what is not. We want to show people how to catch fish, rather than where.Even if you struck out or got skunked, it would be helpful to hear that as well.

If you have any additional details you would like to share - weather conditions, tide (incoming, outgoing, ebb, flood) water temps, bait present, or other mention of techniques or plugs used - feel free, as long as you are not overly specific about location.

Some acronyms -

SH - Sandy Hook
NoMoCo - Northern Monmouth County (below the hook to Shark River Inlet SRI)
SoMoCo - Southern Monmouth County (below SRI to Manasquan Inlet)

OC - Ocean County
IBSP - Island Beach State Park
LBI - Long Beach Island

AC - Atlantic County
AI - Absecon Inlet
CISP - Corson's Inlet State Park
CMC - Cape May County
CMR - Cape May Rips
GEI - Great Egg Inlet
TI - Townsend's Inlet

RB - Raritan Bay
BB - Barnegat Bay
CB - Chesapeake Bay
CBBT - Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel
DB - Delaware Bay

[bunkerjoe4]

NJ WIR 11-10-08

Folks, again it has been a good week for surfcasters targeting striped bass. The bigger bass are few and far between, but there are plenty of sub-legal bass to give fishermen the reason to go out and have fun fishing. Many of these smaller bass are being caught on clams. Many are also being caught by surfcasters working the lower half of the water column with metal jigs and deeper swimming slim profile plugs.

The bulk of the large bass are being caught in the night or low light hours by surfcasters. This has been a pretty consistent pattern. Eels, live or dead, are still producing their share of bigger bass for those who use them strategically.

Boaters are getting bigger bass when they are finding them under schools of bait in the channels or 1/2 to 2 miles out in the near shore areas. There is an abundance of bait, particularly sandeels. This sometimes works against fishermen, as their presentation is competing with all that natural bait. When you find bait that is highly concentrated, your chances improve.

Herring and shad have made an appearance in NJ coastal waters. This appearance, for some 3 weeks now, is slightly earlier than usual. So far the bigger bass have not started the wholesale slaughter of these forage fish.

Additionally, the peanut bunker still remaining in our bays and rivers have not made the mass movement down the coast that surfcasters wait for in anticipation. Instead, you have isolated days where there are strong showings of bait of many kinds, great fishing for a few hours, and then a few very slow days after that.

I feel the sustained fall fishing will not be something that everyone can participate in until we have a steady stream of peanut bunker traveling south in the surf zone. These peanuts stimulate the big bluefish to come in for an easy meal, and the bass after that as they lazily swim in to pick up the pieces. If you are lucky enough to get a day where this is happening, cancel all plans if you can. Fish conditions like this hard, because you don't know when you will see them again.


NY WIR 11-10-08

There is still great fishing to be had on many of the South Shore beaches. The bass are still coming down from New England. The most significant development is that some of our members in Massachusetts and Rhode Island have informed me they feel the bulk of the big bass have made their way past. There may be one more last push of big bass, but the run up there is nearing to a close.

Montauk is still producing, but now the boaters have the edge as sometimes the fish are too far out of surfcasters' reach. Sometimes this begins to happen toward the end of the run. Although you may be able to catch bass well into December in Montauk, look for the run up there to start winding down as well.



Offshore:
The offshore bite is not the spectacular one we have seen in past years at this time in the fall. Sporadic tuna catches are being made. There are some Captains who are still having some great days, but not consistently. I'm still hoping for an increase in the success out there, although a lot of guys have devoted their tuna catching energies to the Carolinas at this point.




Fall Striped Bass Run:

What this means is that a significant amount of bigger bass are now in the NY/NJ area. Fish hard for these fish, folks. What will be left at the end of the run will be thousands of small schoolies in the 20-22" class. These fish, though abundant, are not considered by some to be much of a challenge. As they make their way down the beach, if bait is available, it will be a matter of just casting metal out to the distance they are holding, and reeling them in so you can get another.

That would be a great time to take the kids fishing, as it's almost "can't miss" fishing. You will also have picket fences of fishermen lining the beaches at that time in the late fall, as word gets out.

So get out now and catch some bigger ones! Your time spent will not be wasted. - bunkerjoe

[fishinmission78]

OC yesterday morning. It looked promising as we watched a few big pods of adult bunker offshore, but they never came in close enough. Still managed a few bluefish on metal, up to 10lbs.

[Mike O]

SH early Sunday morning before sun-up 4 shorts up to 25"

Mike O

[voyager35]

Great fishing yesterday a little north of PP inlet, guys. Not many bass, had to work through the blues to get to them. Bluefish were in thick just 1/4 mile off the beach. Hope you guys get into them. We got somewhere around 75 bluefish up to 12lbs on big krocodile spoons, 5z. My arms are tired today.

[clamchucker]

Good bite at Sandy Hook 6-9am. It was all bluefish on metal, all blind casting. Blues 5-12lbs, they were hungry and fat.

[wish4fish]

Good bite at Sandy Hook 6-9am. It was all bluefish on metal, all blind casting. Blues 5-12lbs, they were hungry and fat.

hungry and fat no ****, dude! fished nomoco from 3-7pm, man it was a bluefish orgy! didn't catch no bass, but about 13 blues up to 13 lbs, bluefishpalooza! my buddy got around 30. throwing metal and poppers, big horse bunker in the wash. woo hoo!

[Monty]

NOMOCO this morning 5:30-11:00.
3 short bass 20-26 inches and 3 blues 3-5 pounds.
Blues on the pencil and the bass on a teaser and Double H Rip Runner (silver).
I missed a few hits and lost a few fish today also, good action. Included a double (bass/blue) on pencil teaser.

[fishinmission78]

OC today after work:skunk: Zigged when I should have zagged. Thought I would get some sandeel bass but I suck. Meanwhile, I should have gone north. That's fishin.

[fishjay]

Fish nomoco yesterday. Good bluefish action on whatever you threw. Fish from 6 to 15 lbs. Our group managed to land about 35.

First real bluefish find this year.

[clamchucker]

Another great SH bite this morning. They wanted bombers before sunrise, and SS white littleneck bottles after. Bluefish to 14lbs, no bass. These bluefish had fat bellies.

[Mike O]

SH 1 short bass, but plenty of bluefish. Lost count after #6. One was 32" 12lbs. took me 10 min. to land it. I use 12lb. mono.

Mike O

[DarkSkies]

SH 1 short bass, but plenty of bluefish. Lost count after #6. One was 32" 12lbs. took me 10 min. to land it. I use 12lb. mono.

Mike O

Nice fight, wtg, man. 12lbs gives a fish a sporting chance, no guarantee you will beach that fish. :thumbsup:

[DarkSkies]

Hey, just wanted to put up some of the pics of a nice 41 1/2" fish caught by Amboy Angler, caught yesterday after 21 straight hours of fishing. He won the contest sponsored by American Pride Bait and Tackle, I think they're listed on this site.

Here's a response I put up on another site, so I C&P for here so people can see the fish. Nice fish, man, congrats on the win!:thumbsup:

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Quote:
Originally Posted by AmboyAngler http://www.stripersonline.com/surftalk/images/buttons/viewpost.gif (http://www.stripersonline.com/surftalk/showthread.php?p=5402846#post5402846)
Bunker are really starting to thicken up in the bay and we have some big bass chasing them..... Today was the last day of the tournament and I put in some serious time out there..... Bass were very picky today..... went out last night from 10 PM to 6:30 PM the next day... yes I really wanted to win..... Managed to get a 41 1/2 incher just in the brink of time...... drive over to the shop and on my way I get a disturbing call informing me that a large bass was just brought into the shop... my heart began to pound faster and I was nervous to find out which bass was larger..... I get there and the 2 fish looked identical..... Eddy from the shop measures each fish about 4 different times to make sure and it turns out I had the edge by a half an inch..... a measly half an inch.. boy did I get lucky.... the guy took the loss very well and showed tremendous sportsmanship..... I can't seem to get out of the 25 LB range. Hopefully it will change soon.... If not, there's always the Spring http://www.stripersonline.com/surftalk/images/smilies/biggrin.gif

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Mighta been lucky, but you sure as hell put your time in. almost 21 hrs to get that fish, you deserved it.http://www.stripersonline.com/surftalk/images/smilies/graemlins/clapping.gif http://www.stripersonline.com/surftalk/images/smilies/graemlins/clapping.gif

Some here might not know about the lenghts this kid went to figure this scene out, so I'll embarass him a little and lay it out. http://www.stripersonline.com/surftalk/images/smilies/biggrin.gif

First of all, he wanted to target the largest bass, so he mapped out some parameters where they have been known to show up. Then he set out to figure some of the best strategic spots where he stood to succeed.

Him and the crew had been getting some impressive slobs, some much bigger, so that was the draw. But it ain't easy. The way those fish run, they come in after bunker, one had about 5 lbs of bunker in its fat belly the other night. Sometimes the bite shifts from night to day, and back again. Additionally, when the bunker come close, you may have a 5 or 30 minute window to stick the fish, bring it in, and not lose it.

The rest of the time, it's a waiting game, although smaller fish are available. His crew targets big bass, are willing to wait for them, and this kid did just that, sufffering through 33 degree temps all night, not complaining once. He said" You gotta be in it to win it, have to put in your time".

Did I mention he is using 12lb mono, he wanted to give the fish a "chance", wanted to even it up on the fish's side a bit? http://www.stripersonline.com/surftalk/images/icons/icon14.gif

You can buy all the equipment and gear you want, but you can't buy that kind of committment he has to get big fish.

For someone his age, I really admire that committment. Hat's off to Amboy, that's a beautiful fish, you earned it, man.http://www.stripersonline.com/surftalk/images/smilies/graemlins/clapping.gif http://www.stripersonline.com/surftalk/images/smilies/graemlins/clapping.gif


Pics of his fish:

[wish4fish]

holy ****! thats a cow man, nice fish amboy.:wow:
fished the hook last night, one small bass on a black bomber. it was really slow.

[captnemo]

We had great bluefish action on the boat yesterday all afternoon a little above SRI. Bluefish caught on gold spoons and diamond jigs, all you wanted until your arms were tired. About 1/4 mile offshore, bluefish from 5-15#.

[fishinmission78]

Fished IBSP for the dawn patrol, decent action, bluefish only, needles and tins. Largest blue was around 10lbs.

Amboyangler, that fish has a big healthy gut, nice work.:clapping:

[LennyD]

somoco tues. morning, picked up dozen of short bass before the first light, than turned into a huge blue blitz, monster blues up to 16lb. Lots of birds out there, blues were up on the beach in 1 foot of water as well.:fishing:

[Monty]

NOMOCO this morning.
Could not find any bass and endedup with only 1 blue (also had one bite off a teaser).
After catching schoolies the last few weeks, this atleast put a nice bend in the rod.

3211

[clamchucker]

I had to be in OC today to help someone so I brought my gear. Fished an hour into the darkness north of IBSP. Some feisty bass up to 27", got 5 and lost about that many, feeding on sandeels. fish caught on ava and teaser.

Amboy Angler, congratulations on winning that tourney. 21 hours is an impressive amount of time to put in for one fish. At my age I'm lucky if I can fish for 5 hours at a time. Great job.:clapping:

[DarkSkies]

NOMOCO this morning.
Could not find any bass and endedup with only 1 blue (also had one bite off a teaser).
After catching schoolies the last few weeks, this atleast put a nice bend in the rod.

3211

nice bluefish Monty, looks fat.

[DarkSkies]

Some friends did well in OC yesterday, so I made it down there. First place I went to was dead. I knew the water was productive and there were sandeels around, but no fish. Went to the 2nd spot, found the outsuck, waded out a bit, and started casting a megabait silvery profile, slow retrieve. Had fish on 3rd cast, and then it was pretty steady. Caught 8 up to 27". 2 were bigger, 6 were closer to 22".

I could only stay an hour b.c I'm fighting a chest cold, drank some cough syrup, and started to feel dizzy. I was mad at myself to leave that bite, you never leave the bite when there are fish. I believe the way they were sitting there, I could have caught fish in that area till morning. Conditions were perfect. Oh well, better safe than sorry.:don't know why: There are so much sandeels out there, it's incredible. Fish are gorging themselves on them, fish are small with fat bellies. I'l be back.

[yardvillejimmy]

Fished IBSP with the OFFC yesterday. The three of us had 60 fish. All bass except five were bluefish. Mostly caught on bombers and mambos.

[wish4fish]

Some friends did well in OC yesterday, so I made it down there. First place I went to was dead. I knew the water was productive and there were sandeels around, but no fish. Went to the 2nd spot, found the outsuck, waded out a bit, and started casting a megabait silvery profile, slow retrieve. Had fish on 3rd cast, and then it was pretty steady. Caught 8 up to 27". 2 were bigger, 6 were closer to 22".

I could only stay an hour b.c I'm fighting a chest cold, drank some cough syrup, and started to feel dizzy. I was mad at myself to leave that bite, you never leave the bite when there are fish. I believe the way they were sitting there, I could have caught fish in that area till morning. Conditions were perfect. Oh well, better safe than sorry.:don't know why: There are so much sandeels out there, it's incredible. Fish are gorging themselves on them, fish are small with fat bellies. I'l be back.


man you shoulda stuck around, you left too early. j/k lol.:D i fished oc till 5am, got 29 bass up to 27 1/2, needles and magdarters, black. no keepers but fat footballs. i mighta been only a mile from you, e-mail me for my #. man that was some great fishin, woo hoo!

[plugcrazy]

I fished Island Beach in the rain today. We used clams, bass hit pretty steady. No keepers, the guy a little bit up from us got one at 39", nice fish. We got 11 to 27". There were some birds offshore, though they never came in where we were.

[Monty]

Fished OC on thursday.
Slow pick through the day then at sundown with the wind, rain and pounding surf the fish turned on. (2 blues and 6 bass in that magical 60 minutes (lost a few too).
Ended up with 8 blues and 9 bass on plugs and teasers and ava.
I had a great time, worked hard for the fish in the morningafternoon standing on sandbars taking a pounding and hooking up with bass or blue. Very invigorating and love this type of fishing. Best day I can remember. Fished with my brother inlaw he had a couple of keepers on clams. He also plugged bass and blues. My bass were around 28 inches give or take a couple inches. Had two doubles with blues and one double with stripers. Great day.

3220

3221

3222

3223

3224

[vpass]

Fished NoMoCo, from 5am to Noon. 2 bass to 24 inches, and about 15 Hickory Shads. Bass on chicken Scratch Bomber, and Hickory shads on tiny Fly about 1.5 inches.:)

[LennyD]

Somoco this morning, water got little brown from the storm, tough current, few short only, no bird action.

[clamchucker]

IBSP this morning, we had some good action around sunrise, bass and blues up to 8lbs on bombers and poppers. It didn't last long, and I left to run some errands. Friends reported a slow pick of bass on clams after that.

[DarkSkies]

Late report:

Thu - fished nomoco Thu into Fri 2:30-9am. Normally I don't stick around in the day, but conditions were ideal. Unfortunately no one told the fish. :D

Took me 1 1/2 hours of moving around before I found some fish holding, There was a sweep of waves from right to left, some waves breaking at the beach were 4', surf was getting churned up.

I got the fish by casting away from the sweep, and reeling directly into it, holding my rod sideways. Black bomber with green teaser tail with a green teaser up higher. some on bomber, some on teaser, these were small fish, biggest 24".

People worry about fishing under a full moon, sometimes maybe those concerns are valid. I got those 5 fish rather quickly around 4am, moon obscured by clouds. I was kind of anticipating I might have a night with a lot of fish when the moon came out, and the bite died.

Lesson: Don't count your chickens before they catch! :beatin: :laugh:

In the early morning the water came alive with bait and fish. Thousands of tiny rainfish were doing kamikaze jumps out of the water as predators came rolling underneath them. The predators started jumping, and at first thought they were tailor blues 12-16". After casting like mad for about a half hour with every small piece of metal and teaser I had, I got a hickory shad on a teaser. I realized the hickories were eating the small rainfish. Learned something new because I thought these fish always ate small plankton, like bunker.

It was very foggy, I helped save a captain from running his boat aground. He was headed direct for the beach at a lower speed, I thought he would turn. When I realized he couldn't see land, I yelled out to them, and they missed running aground by about 15 feet. If he reads this, (black and white boat, 21' - 24') I'll take a needlefish plug, if you feel especially grateful.:D

Actually, I'm just glad to see you guys didn't run aground, maybe an extra cup of coffee next time would help. I wouldn't want to see any boater run ashore.

Set up for fishing hickories as there were no bass or blues around in the foggy daylight. A guy came by and I explained where they were, and it was the only game in town. I see by his post he caught some too. :thumbsup: They're fun to catch if nothing else is around, an putup a decent fight on light tackle.

I have been testing this new bunker profile plug made by this guy Smitty. What I like about it is it varies the depth it swims at based on your retrieve. :thumbsup: Want to catch some bigger bass when the large bunker come rolling through, so far it's just been tested on angry bluefish. For Friday, it worked well when I put the 2 teasers in front of it, and different retrieval speeds made the teasers dance at different levels, prompting hits from the shad. I left soon after, a few more hickories on and off.


Fri Night:
Went to OC again, close to where I was the other night, but different town. Fished 2 hours. Fishing didn't seem as hot as the other night, but the fish were still there.

Got 6 bass to 27" by throwing a straight needlefish, no teaser. Got fish at the longest end of my casts, water was pretty rough, fish were out past the whitewater where I was. Fish were pretty fat, looks like they're slurping those sandeels. Some got stuck on my trebles on the retrieve.

[cowherder]

Fished OC on thursday.
Slow pick through the day then at sundown with the wind, rain and pounding surf the fish turned on. (2 blues and 6 bass in that magical 60 minutes (lost a few too).
Ended up with 8 blues and 9 bass on plugs and teasers and ava.
I had a great time, worked hard for the fish in the morningafternoon standing on sandbars taking a pounding and hooking up with bass or blue. Very invigorating and love this type of fishing. Best day I can remember. Fished with my brother inlaw he had a couple of keepers on clams. He also plugged bass and blues. My bass were around 28 inches give or take a couple inches. Had two doubles with blues and one double with stripers. Great day.

3220

3221

3222

3223

3224


wow, 3 double headers, niiiice! :clapping: I never got one, they must feel like you have a tuna! Great catch, hope I get one sometime.

[DarkSkies]

Fished NoMoCo, from 5am to Noon. 2 bass to 24 inches, and about 15 Hickory Shads. Bass on chicken Scratch Bomber, and Hickory shads on tiny Fly about 1.5 inches.:)

wtg man, was nice meeting you out there. :thumbsup: People may think because he got 15, they're easy. Not exactly. Vpass is an accomplished fly fisherman, and a good strategic thinker. When I left we were just starting to get into them, it was the only thing happening over there at that time.

That's a decent accomplishment that you caught 15, good work.:clapping:

[fishinmission78]

IBSP before sunrise. 1 schoolie, 25", chartruese bomber. Water is a little dirty, strong swell.

[vpass]

That's a decent accomplishment that you caught 15, good work.:clapping:

Nice meeting you, Darkskies. Right after you left, the Hickorys started working the rainfish. It was one on almost evey cast. There was a fly fishman next to me it was fun watching him get afew. I never caught them before and it was amazing to watch these fish doing acrobatic flips adding to the thrill in catching them.

[cowherder]

I fished SH this morning, surf was being cut down by the west wind. Man was it windy! I could cast a mile. Got one bluefish on a hopkins, that's all she wrote.

[clamchucker]

A few small bass in somoco this morning, end of the cast, needlefish.

[wish4fish]

fished moco and nomoco today a few places, avas and bucktails, couldn't find a bass to save my life.:embarassed:

[Monty]

NOMOCO this morning also with the same results.


fished moco and nomoco today a few places, avas and bucktails, couldn't find a bass to save my life.:embarassed:

[LennyD]

Somoco this evening, 1 shorty , low tide + dirty water.:don't know why: