NJ fishing reports for November 16-30, 2009

[DarkSkies]

Important when registering on our site -- use an active email address so you can activate your account to be able to post.

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.
More discussion on this:
http://stripersandanglers.com/Forum/...ead.php?t=3763

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.






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

[DarkSkies]

Let's hope there are still some fish left for the surf fishermen. Tomorrow I'll say a prayer to king Neptune. I suggest all you surf anglers who want more quality fish do the same.

They're catching some fish in the 20's and bigger right now in the Delaware and Chesapeake bays. Might be time for a road trip.

[yukon]

Got out today at SH with the kids 3:30 - 5:00. Only had a line in the water for an hour with nothing to show. Big swells. Took 8 oz to hold. Clams and an AVA. Heard one keeper was caught but overall looked dead. Saw the boat reports had em good today with fish in the high 20's which is good to see some bigger fish around.

A few good things out of the day.... Kids had a blast which is always a good thing.. The eels we're HUGE at the B&T I stopped at so I picked up 6 to rig up for later this week and I got some cool pics of the sunset.

[basshunter]

Yukon, what kind of damage did the storm do to SH?

[wish4fish]

awesome sunset pics yukon, i wuz prolly across from you tonite, little more in the bayshore, 1st 2 hours of outgoing, 2 bass, one 23", one 27 3/4" if i pinched the tail it would be a 28. i didn't wanna keep it in case the fish po po was cruzin. clams on the halfshel, nice nite out.

[LennyD]

awesome pix!

[crosseyedbass]

Great sunset! I bet the kids had a blast.

[jigfreak]

Very nice pics, thanks for posting. I fished somoco 3:30-5:30am with surf clams. Some places look bad but I was out early enough on the incoming that I could see some structure. No takers on the clam.

[chas527]

tried fishing nomoco this morning forget it.there is no beach just water.waves were breaking st least 50 feet from shore. saw alot of birds diving but a long way out.

[gjb1969]

well i was sitting at home and it came to me this is the day i had no intention of going out dirty water trash all over but i had to do it i had some bunker i stayed in my go to spot bait and wait and it payed off 40 in fish clean and heavy fish had a big gut on her 9 hr fishing time not bad lots of small fish to make it worth the time spent out there so staying in the back payed off for me

[DarkSkies]

^^ Nice, G!!! Any pics, weight estimates? I'm glad you finally got one. Sitting out there for all that time can play tricks on your mind, you stuck it out and nailed a fattie! WTG bro, ya done good. I'm surprised you didn't drag AA out with ya!

[VSdreams]

tried fishing nomoco this morning forget it.there is no beach just water.waves were breaking st least 50 feet from shore. saw alot of birds diving but a long way out.

Yes, I know what you mean. I ventured out to moco as well. There is too much debri and sand. I went back home with my tail between my legs.

[vpass]

Yes, I know what you mean. I ventured out to moco as well. There is too much debri and sand. I went back home with my tail between my legs.

I did the same. I hit a few spots on the Incoming top of the tide. It was not fishable. I walked out to get near the sandbar and the trough drop was like 2.5 feet, and I was on a steep slope, I panic. I didn't expect it to be that deep. It was the same in other spot I checked.

I will be scouting the beaches tomorrow at low tide. Looks like we will have lot of soft structure.

[finchaser]

Eleven of us( all veteran surf men) fished 5 AM to 7:30 AM this morning in 3 different places in SOMO and NOOC There is no signs of life except for birds working off shore where the boats crushed fish yesterday in 70' of water. We were met by 15 to20 mph NNE winds and 3-5' building seas. These conditions are said to be here until Sunday

Most of Ocean county between no way to get on or off beach (10 to 15 drop) and whats left of them under water has put an end to fishing many prime area's In the few areas accessible places there are any where from 2 to 3 bars with no way to get to the outer bars.

[DarkSkies]

Same experience as all you other guys out there.

Only last night, I convinced myself it would be different because I had live eels!

I had some diseased eels that had to be culled from the tank, so I set out for a place where bigger bass might hide in wait. Fished from 10pm-12am. First stop I noticed a building NE, whereas it had been a promising light NW when I left my house.

It was OK, because in comparing notes with other fishermen I ran into some people who I always wanted to meet. Nice meeting ya DJ A , and I ran into my friend the eel man, a great source of info for rigged eels. He has not been doing as well as last year on his eels, and that set a bad tone for the night. There was a report of a small pod of peanuts with bass under them, but no one managed a fish out of that pod despite valiant efforts.

It was good times out there anyway, the weather was comfortable. Sometimes when the bite really sucks, you can still learn a thing or 2. I'll be trying wire for the rigged eels I'll set up now, thanks for the tip.

Wanted to try a few more spots with the eels. At the 2nd place near deeper water, it looked promising but I kept getting weeds from the outgoing on the line. Decided to move to another spot, better current, but I eventually lost the rigs on the bottom. There are times when having a boat to bounce eels really has its advantages. You can present to the bass very effectively.

Wasn't feeling it, so called it a night early. If you managed to pull out more than one fish last night in Moco you were Houdini. Even the guys fishing the steel structure weren't havin a good night. Hey that's fishin!

[vpass]

Fished NoMoCo, Between a friend of mine, and I we landed 7 fish, all but 1 were 23 to 24 inches, My friend had a bass on the Boga 15 pounds about 32 to 33 inches. All fish were super fat. fish were caught on metals, and teasers The beaches are fishable from Mid outgoing to low. We left the fish biting. The fish were in and out of the surf zone. Birds were workig the bait. As soon as the bird were with in reach we would hook up.

[yukon]

NoMoCo/MoCo 7 - 11:30 pm Nothing Nada. 3 guys. clams, bunker, rigged eels, needles nada ... nothing... 3 spots. Just was hard to get out far at hide tide even with making it out onto the bars. I think mid to low tide would have been much better to at least find some deeper water. Saw a few guys and they had the same story. Who the hell knows

[buckethead]

Fished IBSP last night 8-12, outgoing. I ended up with 5 short bass. No size to them but I still had a good night. Clams and sandworms. 3 on the sandworms, 2 on the clam.

[storminsteve]

I fished moco last night 7-10, needlefish, darters, and windcheater plugs. The swell was a little scary and the wind picked up as it got later. I worked the darter between the sets of waves, tried different sorts of retrieves, nothing. Congrats to the guys who caught, I found the conditions kind of tough.

[DarkSkies]

Nice effort guys. It may be trending toward a daytime, "baitfish in the surf", bite for awhile until the sandeels come back in numbers other than a few choice spots. Also the way the huge sand bars are set up now in places, particularly OC, with 2 or 3 in a row, means that we need some time for new cuts to break through, or you really have to do your homework scouting at low tide, or you need to be 8' tall so you can wade out 200' and deal with the new terrain.

The sad result is that with a few known holes or "edges" left as compared to before, more people will gravitate toward them. That's why it's good to scout for the less popular ones. And IMO it's not a smart idea to let people blab on about them ad infinitum on the internet.

Now more than ever it's critical to read the beach, and know where you want to be during each stage of the tide. There are places that are still good, but only around high tide. There are other places that you should only hit during the last 2 hours of the outgoing so you can wade out past the bar, weather permitting.

Fishing has definitely gotten a lot tougher, and many are accurate in saying the season could be downhill from here. There are a bunch of schoolies being caught now in LI, many between 18-22". They are making their way into all the bay, fringe, and surf areas. We can expect that small fish action in the next few weeks as well.

I don't want to give up yet because the weather has been pretty bearable, even at night. However, throwing artificials at night is not always the most productive choice with the northeast weather patterns coming our way. NE weather patterns tend to push the bait away from the beach. I think the guys who were focusing on the NW pattern, and keeping good logs, got the best of the action so far this fall.

Another suggestion to keep a good log.