Bait --it's What's for Dinner

[skinner]

Going stir crazy waiting for the fishing to ramp up this year. What kinds of bait do you look for as the season progresses. I think I like to see the bunker come in the bays because I know the bass will be close behind

[Rip-Plugger]

Bunker always have some bass right behind. Can't wait either!

R-P

[albiealert]

What RP said, I find the very cold temps will make everything seem dead. Then there are a few warm days and all the sudden they will show up. The sound of flipping bunker is music to my ears.

[DarkSkies]

A lot of folks think a guy who somehow manages double digits of fish in one night...there must be a magic answer to how they did that....


Quite often it is...as there are fishermen out there who are so tuned into the subtle tricks and techniques of what they are doing....that they will out catch others....so yes, skill is a big part of why we catch.....:learn:

[DarkSkies]

But another, extremely significant part...is the amount of bait where we choose to fish for that trip.....



Think of it this way,,,,,,



1. You can have a ton of bait but not many fish... (think miles of bunker just off the coast of NJ for much of the spring with not many bass on them)

2. You can have a ton of bait, and acres of fish...(the ideal condition for some, blitzing, making it a lot easier to catch the fish you're targeting)

3. You can have a lot of fish and small amount of bait
(such as a situation where the bass are migrating along the coast, they are there, yet the mullet or other forage have already left, giving to such conditions where the fish will not hold for very long....and you may slay them one night and find complete dead water the next because last night's fish have moved on)







4. But you will hardly ever,,,,have a lot of fish,,,,,with NO bait....:kooky: Unless you're looking for them in a fish market....:rolleyes:
(the reasons for this are self-evident)

[DarkSkies]

We already have a thread here specifically about mullet.....


http://stripersandanglers.com/Forum/showthread.php?8614-Thoughts-on-Mullet (http://stripersandanglers.com/Forum/showthread.php?8614-Thoughts-on-Mullet)



Since I am obsessive about bait, and scouting for it, and the whys and wheres....I thought some of ya's might like to talk about the bait you are seeing, or not seeing, in this thread.....




Feel free to add any addtional thoughts about the bait you see and how it affects your fishing....:HappyWave:

[DarkSkies]

4. But you will hardly ever,,,,have a lot of fish,,,,,with NO bait....:kooky: Unless you're looking for them in a fish market....:rolleyes:
(the reasons for this are self-evidet)




^^One of the first examples I can come up with today......


Slow morning no bait released 2 bluefish 4# on bucktail

[DarkSkies]

Another example....last night's skunk.....


********
Night bluefish 10-1-12 Early AM....

Went out last night looking for night bluefish....
I could not mark or find any bait and was already sensing the trip would be a bust....it was. Worked the water hard for 2 1/2 hours, not even a tap. :skunk:

[plugginpete]

I am starting to see needlefish too in the back of Jones Inlet. Start bringing those needlefish out there fellas!

[rockhopper]

ha ha heres some bait for you dark! guy eats live eel, sick!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4FOk__4uOk&feature=player_embedded

[DarkSkies]

Rockhopper, thanks for that... I think...:kooky: :HappyWave:

Pluggin Pete. thanks for your observations as well.
The other day I marked a lot of bait. Saw small schools of larger mullet, around 7". Also a school of needlefish that came into the shallows with the mullet.
I took the pics in dirty water so they're not the best, but I'll try to post when I get a chance. And..... absolutely you folks should start using needlefish plugs this time of year. :learn:

[finchaser]

When you say marked allot of bait do you have a fish finder in your head that projects images on the back of your glasses like the screen on a boat's fish finder :huh:

[DarkSkies]

^^ I can only report what I see, Big Guy.....;)

although sometimes I see bait and fish, in my dreams at night....does that count? :moon: :kiss: :HappyWave:









******
Just to add to that, I'm seeing less bait overall in different locations, but higher concentrations at the places where I do find it....
And that is the frustration for many of us....It seems, from my observations, that your best chances of getting more than one fish are in the middle of the highest bait concentrations. To some that may seem obvious, but in past years I've been able to find fish, as long as some bait was around.

It's been a lot more difficult for me to find fish, this year.

[bababooey]

Has anyone seen lizard fish yet? Last year they were all over around this time

[storminsteve]

I haven't seen or heard of one yet. Where did they go?

[bababooey]

Rumor has it dark eats bait for dinner. True?

[williehookem]

Has anyone seen lizard fish yet? Last year they were all over around this time

A boat got one off of Moriches today, Thhey were looking for a fish ID, here is the pic.
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[DarkSkies]

^ Thanks for that Willie...I haven't seen any lizard fish on our side in NJ yet,,,though I will be very happy when they show in numbers as last year they kept the bass active for a few weeks while we were waiting for the sandeels to come inshore....



******
Why Bait is important....
I took these pics last week when there were huge quantities of the bait in the back bays and rivers...
As the bait has slowly moved to the ocean the robust action that we had has greatly diminished....
The folks who recognize this and aggressively seek out the highest bait concentrations can find some nicer fish.....:fishing:



some pics....

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Hard to see because the water was so dirty....but when I took those pics in the last week of Sept the mullet were there by the thousands...

[DarkSkies]

Last week of Sept 2012....needlefish and mullet together.....


Needlefish on the bottom of the pic, 7" mullet towards the top. sorry about the clarity the water was very dirty but they were there in astounding numbers.
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here, even though the water is dirty if you look closely towards the bottom you can see a nice size school of 12" needlefish (gar as some of ya's refer to them)
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[cowherder]

Wow you really do a lot of scouting, dark. Thanks for sharing the pics.

[jonthepain]

welll gardy gar gar

[7deadlyplugs]

welll gardy gar gar


Shades of Ralph Kramden?

[jonthepain]

ding ding ding ding ding!

dang, well done 7!

rofl

[DarkSkies]

The significance of eating mullet......

It creeps me out just thinking about it.:scared:..to me mullet are bait....
but there are cultures that celebrate the coming of the mullet...whole families go out there, from the youngest to the oldest, to get the mullet that will sustain them through the winter.....

Generally, these folks are from areas like Guyana and the West Indies.....
A Guyanese friend, mullet netter and obsessive fisherman.... this is one of a few pics he sent me.......

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The above are mostly corncob mullet.....








He also shared the following info about how they eat the mullet and other fish, and what it means to their culture.......

"We clean and scale many of the mullet right when we catch them.
thats why you will see Grandma and some of the women sitting on buckets at the water's edge cleaning fish.

We also like to eat spearing. We clean them right away, deep fry them, and eat with hot sauce and hot spices."



"The corncob mullet, we call them the 'carryman' because they are so big they can carry your net away"


" These are the mullet that are usually left after all the others go out...and we also call them and the other mullet that are left...the 'remaindermen'...."


When the last mullet leave, we have kind of a song and prayer for them, to mark their going away"

[DarkSkies]

^^ Jon, great memories from that show., do ya remember when he and Norton were chefs pushing some product, and Ralph got so nervous he forgot his lines? :d :HappyWave:




More bait, this came from the Raritan Bay in Sept.....

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5" peanut bunker, most closely matched by large Saltwater Rattle traps......







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Spot (lafayette) that some friends of mine were netting back in the Raritan....

[storminsteve]

"The corncob mullet, we call them the 'carryman' because they are so big they can carry your net away"


" These are the mullet that are usually left after all the others go out...and we also call them and the other mullet that are left...the 'remaindermen'...."


When the last mullet leave, we have kind of a song and prayer for them, to mark their going away"

Roving reporter darkskies at it again lol. the next time I am at a party I will be able to wow them with these mullet terms, remainderman and carryman. Can you imagine how many housewives I can impress with that?:laugh: Nice work dark.

[jonthepain]

Roving reporter darkskies at it again lol.

Post of the Week

[DarkSkies]

This is an illustration of the power of a peanut bliz...

A few days before Sandy, the fishing in Monmouth County was the best it has been all year.....
All due to the peanut bunker streaming out of the bays, creeks,rivers, and inlets.

Some of the members and I were discussing this....
Referring back to the fall about 6 years ago when it was this good....
The great thing about peanut bunker is you never know when they will show up...they are not as reliable a forage as sand eels as they are faster moving, but they can be corralled between jetties and inlets for hours, or even days, at a time,,,,,,and the fishing can be spectacular.

The night I took these pics, some other friends had been out and ran into some great action...between the 4 of them they caught 100 bass and blues, to 37#...well into the dark....

I was looking a little north of where the were, reasoning that I could find fish as peanuts were all over....
Unfortunately, the desire to find my own fish cost me,,,,,as the best action in 20 miles of beach was where they were....and the action where I searched was slim to none......

They are not big on the cell phone chain....don't bring their phones to the water with them, and I usually don't either.....so although we rail against guys calling each other,,,,in this instance it might have been a good idea...lesson learned...still happy for them to get into so many fish....as these are part of a group I know that travels 2 hours each way, every time, to get into our great NJ bass fishery.......:thumbsup: :HappyWave:


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The pics....another friend and I found these after the blitz was over, and I helped him to gather some up for his cooler...they were spread solid along a 1/2 mile of beachfront......

[DarkSkies]

Roving reporter darkskies at it again lol. the next time I am at a party I will be able to wow them with these mullet terms, remainderman and carryman. Can you imagine how many housewives I can impress with that?:laugh: Nice work dark.


Post of the Week

You guys mean you don't go to parties and talk non-stop to the folks there about fishing? :scared: :rolleyes:

Steve, you should try it.....I hear the chicks really dig it.....:kooky: :ROFLMAO

[crosseyedbass]

Man when you think of the carnage and bloody chopped peanut bunkers that were on the beach too the seagulls must of had a feast that day. Cool pics thanks for sharing.

[hookedonbass]

I was wondering if anyone can identify these baitfish. I fished monco earlier this week and these were in the back. Sorry the pics are not better. They were moving around too fast for me to get a clear photo of them.

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[buckethead]

They look too fat and light colored to be killies or whitebait. They almost look brownish or tan. Hard to tell really. I'll take a guess and say if you were near a marina or inlet they could be baby pollock or some kind of offshore groundfish YOY.

[porgy75]

Great skills bucket head I would not have known even what the shading was on those fish. Good deal!

[buckethead]

Porgy thank for the confidence but it was just a guess. I also have seen juvenile pollock around the areas I mentioned so I thought it could be possible he saw them. It really is hard to tell. In the spring there are different bait varieties coming and going randomly. The fall migration is much easier to figure.

One thing to remember is that when fish are in lighter areas, like the one in the picture, they may appear to be lighter. In darker areas of mud they will be darker. This is for the same fish, and they will change or modify their shading relative to their environment. Example is the bass in the back bays tend to be darker colored. When we start first catching the fish from the ocean you may notice they are lighter colored with sea lice. Another example is when you keep eels in a bucket. Light bucket will produce light colored eels. On a new moon you want the darker eels so a little trick is to put them in a bucket with the inside painted black for the darkest eels possible. Hope this helps, and again I do not know if I am right on those baitfish it was a mere guess. Someone else may have other thoughts about what they are, guess away.

[DarkSkies]

Thanks for the info buckethead. :HappyWave:

Over the last 2-3 weeks small bait has been building up in the bay channels.
This, for the most part, has not translated to bait being in the rivers, until just last week. Until recently the dominant forage has been bunker. The downside to that is that where there are no bunker, there will be no numbers of fish.....

This is disappointing to me, as the small fish that we usually see in the rivers this time of year are not around in the numbers that they usually are. This also lends support to the theory, and observations, that there are less bass around.

Many folks gripe on the internet about the big bass .....
My outlook is that the smaller ones are more important, because they indicate the future of the fishery....and this year, as part of a decline I have seen for the last 3 years, I am seeing less and less of the smaller bass,

in the year classes 1-4.
http://stripersandanglers.com/Forum/showthread.php?154-Helpful-Fishing-Links
(12-22")

[DarkSkies]

^ This small bait has consisted chiefly of rainfish and spearing. Someone here, I think it was buckethead, did an excellent compare and contrast between the two types. :thumbsup:

The way I understand it one way to differentiate between the 2 is that rainfish have 2 dorsal fins while the spearing have only one.

These are some small spearing (2-3") that the bluefish were puking up the other morning.....

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[buckethead]

Thank you for the kind words ds. It would be easier to id them if one could be shown out of water like the ones in your hand. I was also thinking that perhaps those fish in the picture could have been juvenile blowfish depending on where the pic was taken.

[storminsteve]

Thanks bucket and dark have learned a lot reading this thread.

[DarkSkies]

Always appreciate your sharp observations and wisdom buckethead.
Here's one of the fish that the blues were puking up the other day.....you could be right about the ones on the other page being blowfish fry.....there is an abundance of blowfish around now....many of them in the 1-2# range.....
The sea robins are exceptionally big as well.....


There are some robins reported that are in the 3-4# range...these are very large for sea robins...and I think this time of year is when the robins and blowfish spawn....don't know why folks are throwing these large sea robins back as they are great eating....the blowfish as well......
thank you all, for sharing your thoughts....a pic of the medium sized blowfish......

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[vpass]

Always appreciate your sharp observations and wisdom buckethead.
Here's one of the fish that the blues were puking up the other day.....you could be right about the ones on the other page being blowfish fry.....there is an abundance of blowfish around now....many of them in the 1-2# range.....
The sea robins are exceptionally big as well.....


There are some robins reported that are in the 3-4# range...these are very large for sea robins...and I think this time of year is when the robins and blowfish spawn....don't know why folks are throwing these large sea robins back as they are great eating....the blowfish as well......
thank you all, for sharing your thoughts....a pic of the medium sized blowfish......

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I caught a blue the other day that spit up a Spot that was missing its head.

The next time out I'm taking some Sea robin to try out. It might be a game fish one day.:lookhappy:

[storminsteve]

sea robin gamefish! lol You may be right vpass if I don't catch a striper soon I would be glad to catch a sea robin. Might try eating one too. Has anyone else eaten them? dark?

[Monty]

Fished RB last night outgoing ....bunker chunks ...no wind ...water calm ....lighting flashes north of me ....2 keepers 35 and 33 both released ...still swimming .....caught them back to back ....nice fight on both of them

Congrats on the Bass MC, Awesome pics!!!!

I fished last night bayside, 1:30-8:30.
Finally got rid of the skunk (5th time out...).
Caught the top fish at 2:30 on a teaser, then at 3:30 on a 4" plastic plug I caught the short bass.
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[cowherder]

monty that fish in the top pic what is that is it a herring?

[Monty]

Awesome reports madcaster and monty! wtg on the releases as well! monty that fish in the top pic what is that is it a herring?
I thought so, figures first fish of the year for me and its a freaking oddball:huh:.

[J Barbosa]

Nice job Madcaster & Monty.

Blurry pic doesn't help to id it but I don't see the blue tint found in river herring. Body looks a little big for herring and the river herring are way up the streams right now getting ready to spawn.

Are you familiar with hickory shad Monty?

[Blazin420]

Nice job catchin fellas!! I would say some sort of shad for sure by the pic..Like J said not much color to it unlike herring..

[basshunter]

Yeah maybe a hickory shad. Did a search and came up with this thread. Didn't know they came in this early?
http://stripersandanglers.com/Forum/showthread.php?2236-Differences-between-herring-and-hickory-shad&highlight=herring+hickory+shad

[finchaser]

body shape, and tail looks like a blue back sea herring or bunker to me definitely not a shad no spots and wrong shape tail

[Monty]

body shape, and tail looks like a blue back sea herring or bunker to me definitely not a shad no spots and wrong shape tail
I have caught Hickory Shad before and this did not look like one.
That's why I thought it was a herring. I have a pic from last week of a dead thing with no head. I thought they were similar, posted here
http://stripersandanglers.com/Forum/showthread.php?2236-Differences-between-herring-and-hickory-shad&p=78530&posted=1#post78530

[ledhead36]

Congrats on the Bass MC, Awesome pics!!!!

I fished last night bayside, 1:30-8:30.
Finally got rid of the skunk (5th time out...).
Caught the top fish at 2:30 on a teaser, then at 3:30 on a 4" plastic plug I caught the short bass. Lost another shortly after on same small plug. Then around 4:30 I got the Fluke on a 5 inch plastic plug. Very nice night and felt great being out there, felt like a miracle to finally get a bend in the rod :lookhappy:.
Threw larger stuff, a lot, but nothing.

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Monty its hard to tell from the blurry pic as jbarbosa said. That looks like herring tho. No dot on it that would id it as a bunker. I looked at the other pic you posted where the head is chopped off. That pic looks like a bunker. The yellow tail is a dead giveaway. Ever see bunker packed tight in schools? You can see the top of the tail coming out of the water its yellow. Nice going on the catching, madcaster as well. madcaster you are on a roll lately hope it keeps up for you.

[J Barbosa]

https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5280/13982685157_8edac46760_b.jpg (https://flic.kr/p/niAV9z)
Snagged this herring(?) in between snagging bunker last night (targeting bunker).

[Monty]

For the herring

Pic of the one I caught on a black teaser 4/27.

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[Monty]

Couple pics from today. Didn't really show the melee as I hoped.

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[J Barbosa]

You can purchase polarized lenses made for SLR cameras (they go cheap on ebay) and hold it over your cameras lens while taking the picture.

It removes the glare and allows you to capture the action that is subsurface. Works exactly the same way as polarized glasses do.

[seamonkey]

Must be nice to see bunker right in close like that with fish on them. Whenever I see bunker there is just bunker. Or the fish are crashing on them and too far out to cast. Cool pic.

[DarkSkies]

I have been lamenting the lack of consistent bait types, other than bunker and rainfish, in our NNJ area for some time now.
The chief forage in many of the back bays in NNJ seems to be shrimp, and the bunker when they swim through. When you can't find them you can't find fish.

The most unusual finds, IMO, come from the ocean, and are here today, gone tomorrow.
One of our members did pretty well on larger bass and bigger bluefish a few weeks ago.

Here's why - they were chasing sardines, which were gone by the next night.
Thought some of ya's might like to see the pic he sent me.......

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[buckethead]

I have been lamenting the lack of consistent bait types, other than bunker and rainfish, in our NNJ area for some time now.
The chief forage in many of the back bays in NNJ seems to be shrimp, and the bunker when they swim through. When you can't find them you can't find fish.



Judging by the internet comments some are starting to agree with you. I think it will be a lot worse once the jetty replenishment is done. There will be no need for the small bait to gather inshore on the ocean side.


"Several posters, including myself, have remarked about the lack of small bait fish on the beach. I've noticed a precipitous decline in the last couple of years in bait fish along the beaches I fish. Can't say how much is tied to Sandy and/or beach replenishment, but for the last two summers it's has been especially noteworthy. I did see a large number of crab sheds on the beach day before yesterday and that's what the fluke and occasional resident bass have been feeding on. Areas where I've always seen small bait fish have been just about bait free. "

[SharkHart]

Found the Diner Founder the Diners. Bass put on a display all around on clouds of rainfish, and a few nuts mixed in. The only problem they were mostly laughing my offererings, only got 2. They were flying through the bait schools at super speeds and sending it airborn. Got so frustrated i just took pictures. Headlight will scare bass? How about add a flash going of every 5 seconds, they didnt care one bit. You can see a bass face coming up on last pic too.

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[J Barbosa]

Great pics SharkHart. :thumbsup:

I always struggle to catch bass whenever there is that much small bait around. I had the same experience about a week ago.

[SharkHart]

See the Bass Eye in the lower right corner of the bait going airborn 18936

[hookedonbass]

I dont use anything fancy, it is a mid range Kodak Point and Click camera, so I can have it in my pocket. It takes about 5 secs to snap the picture after I click it so i was was just shooting randomly to try to luck/time when the bass came up.


See the Bass Eye in the lower right corner of the bait going airborn 18936

Thanks for the response. Awesome pics dude thanks for sharing!

[Monty]

Repost of a Rip-Plugger pic, a "bunker hole".

http://stripersandanglers.com/Forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=18905&d=1411725480&thumb=1

[7deadlyplugs]

Pretty cool it's like he has his own bait pond.

[DarkSkies]

Good job on posting pics of bait you are seeing, people.

Bait is key to finding fish. When I'm out for the night moving through spots, if I can't find bait I move on quickly.

The other night I was out. Not successful that particular night...but finding the different kinds of bait was pretty enjoyable to me,....
Some pics of spearing/rainfish/and needlefish.......

**(will load them in here when I get a chance)

[Blazin420]

Last night 730-1230am...Spot 1 was a bit tuff with the wind blowing NNW about 20-25.. made it tuff to really work the plugs right.. lasted and hr there and moved to somewhere it was more at my back...Walked a good ways with nothing http://www.stripersurf.com/images/smilies/no.gif ..but the spearing were thick..I put my light on to change plugs and look down to see spearing all over the beach..They were smaller spearing but everywhere...I switched to my small stuff and only managed a few hits that were small blues cause i had 2 Zooms get chompped...I even snagged a few of the spearing while retriving....Lots of bait but no fishhttp://www.stripersurf.com/images/smilies/nixweiss.gif ...Headed back out tonigh

[J Barbosa]

Friday night caught 3 short bass on swim shads.

Saturday night my report is basically the same as Blaze's. Tried a few different spots within a span of 60 miles...

Found the bait but not the fish. Caught a couple hickory shad on teasers but thats it. Lots of guys out fishing in many different areas but didn't see one fish caught.
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[DarkSkies]

Fall 2014 - the year of the Spearing...
The year the Sand eels went on vacation somewhere else....


I'll come back and talk about this when I get a chance......:fishing:

[Monty]

This morning hooked this.

http://rocksimpson.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/2014_11_16_h.jpg

[DarkSkies]

Fall 2014 - the year of the Spearing...
The year the Sand eels went on vacation somewhere else....
I'll come back and talk about this when I get a chance......http://stripersandanglers.com/Forum/images/smilies/fishing.gif









^Continued......
Some pics of bait that was in the back bays last Fall..
The first is a needlefish...in this one area there were large needlefish up to 12" on the prowl after smaller baitfish...is it any wonder that folks do so well on needles in the fall?
Here's some proof as to why.....:learn:



The 2nd pic is a poor pic of the thousands of small rainfish and spearing that were around....there was one cove area where I came upon thousands and thousands of them one night.
These were tiny juveniles....ranging from 1/2 to 2" long....

My flashlight on the water attracted and concentrated them....As I did that some bluefish and bass moved in from deeper water and started hammering them...oblivious to the fact that I was there...but cautiously out of reach on the edges of the shadow line cast by my light on the water....

It was fascinating for me to watch...so I just thought I would share it with you folks......


The 3rd pic I think.....is some spearing that JB sent me...either noticed by him or Blazin........:HappyWave:

Some friends mentioned the surf was loaded with spearing a few weeks ago...
Within 2 nights after that the back bays were loaded with these....according to my logs they were about a month late this year...but definitely a part of the food chain in those areas......

[SharkHart]

Fish were spitting up a lot of these today at the shark river reef


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[jigfreak]

Nice! About time. Tho they prob wont come in with all the beach replensishment.

[DarkSkies]

Late season mullet
I said I would try to post pics when I can. These are some of the huge mullet they have been seeing as of this week. They call the largest ones "Curry man" mullet or "remainder man" because in their culture they are the last ones to remain in the area. The first pic shows a bucket filled with pretty large ones, so large they are as long as the diameter of the bucket. The 2nd one shows the mullet 9" up to 21". The largest one, 21", is laid out alongside the left side of the pic.

[nitestrikes]

Some fish still around chasing the herring. I fished this weekend didn't get a thing. Someone put up this pic of bass blues and herring, thought I would share it.

[seamonkey]

Now I see why you gents do so well with the SPs and bombers up there.

[VSdreams]

Looks like a big herring? posted by someone on the net. Pickled herring and bluefish anyone?;)

[fishinmission78]

I would say that looks like herring as well.

[fishinmission78]

There is a crapload of small bait in the surf right now in Ocean County. There were baitballs at times coming in and out of the surf in the Park yesterday. Mostly rain fish, a lot of baby peanut bunker mixed in too. Wish I could have taken a video. It was intense at times until the south wind came up.

[hookset]

When I was catching small stripers the other day I was looking around for what they are feeding on. I saw a lot of small rainfish in the surf. Some signs for a possible good Spring.