S&A Education Series: Understanding back bay bait migration and fishing patterns

[hookset]

^^^^^Add the sedges to that. You would be surprised at the size of some of the bass feeding where those little creeks dump out.

[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.

Attachment 18932Attachment 18933Attachment 18934Attachment 18935

[lostatsea]

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.

This one too very cool.

[lostatsea]

Do any of you guys think the fish are behaving any differently this year relative to all the bait? The big blues are in one place not the other. Big stripers seem stuck to the bunker. Even small stripers are not distributed well seems like they are stacked in certain places as well. Thoughts?

[plugcrazy]

Someone told me the west and northwest winds cool the water down. I think that has a lot to do with it. Also i think depends on the bait size. When it's close then the bait moves in the surf line. Also the peanut bunker move closer to shore than the big bunker do.

[baitstealer]

With the mild winter was wondering if the bunker will be here early?

[J Barbosa]

Great pics SharkHart.

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 Attachment 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 Attachment 18936

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

[lostatsea]

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

love this pic!

[ledhead36]

Just a heads up the bay temps went down to 51 last nite and have been in the mid 50s all week with the strong northwest winds. its only a matter of time before all the bait from the back will be in the ocean and with fish blasting on it. We got some small bass last night but I may be switching to the ocean soon.

[DarkSkies]

Spring Bait Migration.....


The seasonal pattern of spearing.... (1 month late to NNJ this year....but in the last few days causing an extra abundance of small fish being caught in the surf).......

Those of you who got those excited texts from me a few days ago....will start to see that the predictions I made...are correct....as more bass will be caught in close....and even though the back bay water temps are getting uncomfortable for a decent consistent shore bite....will (hopefully) see the bluefish stick around for a bit longer.....and start to see more of the elusive weakfish.....now that these small spearing are in the mix........









Some of you will remember....only 8-10 short years ago...when in late April we would have a tremendous seasonal pattern of baitfish along our Jersey shoreline......
The spearing and other small forage would leave in the winter...and move south to warmer waters.......

Usually in April they would return en masse...sometimes the winter spearing...larger in size, would be in some warmer back bay areas throughout the winter....but you could not always count on them.....

Finchaser would be a great source of info on this.........we used to go to some of our early season back bay haunts and look for the winter spearing...when we found them we knew we stood a chance of catching a few bass....South Jersey seems to have a different pattern than North Jersey....in case anyone fishes both areas...you might notice these differences as well......

The most exciting thing for me...was seeing these vast schools of forage fish move along our Coast....

That's when I first met the OFFC (Old Farts Fishing Club)
We used to spend the whole day driving up and down, from one town to another...as these forage massacres were so common at this time of year that if you missed one...you just drove to another town south or north and you could find them...

There would be spearing, rainfish,....herring, hickory shad..bunker......all in the mix.....
And the real exciting times would be when they were pursued by large numbers of hungry predators.....blues chopping them up....and bass at the end of the line......... sucking up the pieces...

The predators would push them onto the beach,.......it would be hundreds of dead baitfish of different sizes washed up....as they tried to escape the certain death that awaited them just beyond the surf break.....it was so exciting to see and witness.......
Unfortunately...some of us took it for granted...thinking we would see it every year......
I haven't seen Spring bait migration of that magnitude in several years now......


Still....I thought some of you folks might appreciate hearing about it...I know some of ya's remember.....
and that's why something as innocuous as spearing showing up after a long cold Winter......is still exciting to me.......

[porgy75]

Awesome advice dude I never really put that much thought into it. thanks

[buckethead]

The most exciting thing for me...was seeing these vast schools of forage fish move along our Coast....
There would be spearing, rainfish,....herring, hickory shad..bunker......all in the mix.....
And the real exciting times would be when they were pursued by large numbers of hungry predators.....blues chopping them up....and bass at the end of the line......... sucking up the pieces...

The predators would push them onto the beach,.......it would be hundreds of dead baitfish of different sizes washed up....as they tried to escape the certain death that awaited them just beyond the surf break.....it was so exciting to see and witness.......
Unfortunately...some of us took it for granted...thinking we would see it every year......
I haven't seen Spring bait migration of that magnitude in several years now......


Still....I thought some of you folks might appreciate hearing about it...I know some of ya's remember.....
and that's why something as innocuous as spearing showing up after a long cold Winter......is still exciting to me.......

Me too those were great times. We also had sandeels set up twice a year. You could catch fish during the day and didn't have to target the dawn or dusk bite. Thanks for bringing back the memories dark.