"Dark the ACF" went fishing the other night....if anything just to get that Goog Monty off my back.....

Short version- 8 hour trip, ended up in the morning at sunrise with a lucky short bass, hit a small polaris. I wanted to stay away from any place that might have crowds....the lack of life out there got me to realize why the few places that are holding fish, draw the crowds they do.








Long Version-Tuesday night.....
8 hour trip...only fished for 5 of those hours....took a nap in the middle because fishing for this time of year....halfway through October...(which used to be one of the prime months of the year for catching double digits of bass in NJ)....sucked so bad I knew I needed to step back and give myself an attitude re-adjustment.

I hit the less crowded places....as I get older crowds have less of an appeal to me.....no matter what people are catching....I try to stay away....there used to be so many alternate choices it wasn't a big deal to find an isolated area where you could bail fish all to yourself at night.....
In recent times no so much.....it is what it is......

The solitude is the thing that I need....the bonus use to be all these spots, if you did your homework and followed seasonal patterns in your logs....you could find some fish to put a bend in the end of your rod...that's important as well...and now it just ain't so.....many places are barren of predators......
Ex - I can remember a time when the Shrewsbury, Navesink, and Raritan rivers held high numbers of small bass most of the year....now that's not the case....except for the prime months....

Not for the lack of food or bait.....I saw bait all over.....everywhere I scouted...
Rivers are filled with spearing by the hundreds of thousands......
Some of the bays still have peanut bunker and giant mullet...
The ocean has had large schools of adult bunker lately...with only limited, specific bites available to those of us fishing from shore.....

When I got up and started out again to fish before dawn....I made a serious effort to fish a few more choice, isolated spots..... that hold fish...but are not popular with the internet fishermen....

There was white water....a nice chop to the surface...conditions that Monty and others usually drool over.....
Midway through the flood tide....the areas should have been filled with small bass looking to feast on all the bait....

Every single area that I stopped at....has produced bass for me at this time in October....in the past....

Cast after cast produced nothing....working all levels of the water column....could not even get a sluggo chopped in half as I worked them and different sizes of rubber/metals/teasers and bucktails as well.....

Frustration building......Finally managed one lucky bass on the small polaris popper....
I felt there was no skill involved in catching that bass as it was the only one........
Can't even claim to have "missed a few".....