Nice shad, Lenny. They're also called Jersey Tarpon.

I know many people remain focused on bass, but on light tackle the hickory shad are great fun. When compared to herring, they're way more aggressive and will eat other fish, so you can catch them with large teasers or spearing. They're a good fish to bring the kids out for, these and the small bluefish that are around now.


****************

Always check the weather report!
I'm so obessive about checking the weather, and check it every day several times. Not only the beach cams, but when the weather is changing I look at predictions broken down by the hour to see the best window.

Today I failed to do that, as I dragged Pebbles out of bed at 4am. Call it being tired or googanism, I didn't hit the PC updates before we left. Last night they said 10-15 N, and variable. Not too bad, fishable...

We got down to the water, the wind was howling before sunrise, straight in your face NE. We tried to hide behind some structure, but the 20mph, and gusts to 30, made things unfishable where we were. Gave it a few casts and decided to change plans.

We went and mugged Finchaser! He was hard at work trying to pull a fish or 2. Bait was around but more scattered than usual.

We all gave it our best. He might blame me for shutting the bite down. The real blame today goes all to the wind. There were a few maniacs trying for fish in any spot that offered a lee, the best we heard of was one bass on an Ava47, and one small bluefish.

Finchaser, the Old Grouchy Basstard, managed a few bite offs on rubber, not much luck with anything else. Called it a morning early.

It's gonna be hard to present to the fish today, guys and girls. Good luck to anyone who tries.