NJ fishing reports for May 1-14, 2010

[cardoc765]

So we went back out last night in the back bay. Water was calm and a slight warm breeze. Hour into the out going started getting hits and managed 1 keeper. 2 hours into the out going they really started hitting and we ran out of clam right after mrs cardoc got a really nice hit. I am sooooo beat from walking the sand and wading out all day yesterday and last night. Didn't see any blues last night and mrs cardoc saw a fish come to the top of the water and make a big swirl.

Hope you feel better pebbles. We still need to get out there.

[buckethead]

Fished early morning at SH. Pulled in one keeper on a bucktail.

[SharkHart]

First i went 3 hours without a bite, moved the ship/ aka my feet about 15 miles north, I found a ton of 16-21" bass boiling the bay waters on the outgoing tide. Got a bunch of them fiesty suckers, a lot were even picky even with one of the largest amount of surface activity and poping ive ever seen. A near by spot had a couple of fish that didnt look like toys in the 25-28", think i got 4 in that model size. Struck out looking for ocean side blues at first light

[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]

Stripermania you won the plug in the April random drawing!

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.

If you struck out or got skunked, it would be helpful to hear that as well. Anyone who posts a report can win a plug even if they got skunked!



PM me your info so I can send it out. Thanks for posting and helping to make this a great site!

This month we're giving out plugs from Ace Baits, or something similar.
http://stripersandanglers.com/Forum/...splay.php?f=83

Thanks for posting and helping to make this a great site!

[DarkSkies]

Had a long day today, most of it was not fishin, but I did meet some good people along the way.

5-5:30am - out back - picked up one medium blue on a storm shad at my first stop. Tide dropped, and on to the next spot.

6-9am - the beach nomoco- spent too much time here because of past productivity. There was a 1/2 hour flurry of bluefish activity on artificials. SS littleneck poppers were the ticket, I had none in my bag. Some bass were also caught on clams, but generally the morning seemed slower action than it had been. Ocean is warming up, but the water was a little dirty for the incoming. Light W breeze about 5mph.

To the 2 friends I fished near this morning, and the Dad and his sons (Internet name Ambassador?)....
I hope you remember the place I told you to check out on the way home. They had action with big blues today there. sustained action for 7hours, hundreds of big blues beached.

If you don't remember the place contact me through this site's e-mail. You should definitely consider taking your sons there tomorrow. If the weather conditions don't change drastically by then, you should all have a blast as those big blues should be there once more.


*************
So on the way home I stopped at a back bay area. The water was stained, looked like toilet water. You couldn't see 1 foot down, heavy algae bloom, the bunker should be happy.

There were about 70 people fishing a 1/4 mile stretch of beach, and quite a few bystanders. Many of them were hooked up with very large blues at the same time. I spoke to a few guys going home, nice to meet ya's.

They said the best action had been on krocodile type spoons. I geared up for the bluefish metal fest and set out to find a casting spot. I started throwing metal and catching nice blues.

I want to be clear about when people say they had them on every cast. There may have been a few people there today with that experience, but for the most part I would call it a steady, sustained bite. Every few casts you would have a hit or a hookup, as some were missed in that stained water.

The presentation was important as well. The dirty water neccessitated the flashiest of spoons for the fish to see it.

What worked:
krocodiles, or kroc substitutes, gator spoons, kastmasters, and small ss type bottle plugs. Also a few were picked up on Roberts rangers, but not many.

To prove how specific the presentation needed to be, I went through my bag to find metals that were less effective:
ava jigs (though a few were catching on these)
hopkins (maybe not flashy enough)

There was also small bait in the shallows at the beginning of the ebb, and possibly cinder worms from a cinder worm hatch.

There was one guy getting them on almost every cast. He was using a heavier Deadly ****. I think this was part of the reason he was so successful, and the fact he was casting about 20 yards further than everyone else.

I fished there 2 1/2 hours. The best action was as I got there, fish were in close. With the ebb tide they gradually moved out further. I was told they had action since 6am, which gave everyone who was there for the duration over 7 hours of pretty great action.

It was so great that some of the Ocean County crews were there, Ellen and John, Ron Muccie's friends, and several other groups from OC.

I just don't want to hype this up like some people are prone to do, but for me it was great fishing, and intense fun fighting angry blues, the majority of whom tailwalked as you fought to bring them to shore.

I remarked to the guy next to me as he was battling a 10# blue on a small SS bottle plug: "Wow what crazy action, blues to 10# tail walking!"
He said: 'Yeah,I'm kind of jaded by now, we had them to 15lbs this morning!"

That was the best part of today's fishing for me, the tail walking and the energy of these blues in warm water. I live for fights like these from shore with gator blues. You all can catch all the smaller bass you want every day, I'll take these monster blues over bass the same size every time.

I got 12 to 11# and kept 4.

You could tell by the hoots and hollers that people were having a great time. Young and old were in the game here, though as I said those who dialed in to the metals above definitely got more fish.

If Dads are taking younger children to see and catch these, maybe it might be a good idea for the Dad to hook the fish first and then hand off the rod.

In all, it was a great way to end what started out as a slow day of fishin.

[fishinmission78]

IBSP 3-8am, 1 bass 34", many big blues, poppers. Bass on metal lip swimmer.

[captnemo]

We got into a decent bite today near the Shrewsbury rocks. Bass to 16lbs, jigging. Saw rainfish near the Hook on the way home. Things are falling into place now fellas.

[storminsteve]

Intense action today with tackle busting blues in the back of rb, it was amazing how fat they were. They have to be eating well. Lost a few crocs as they must have swallowed them whole and bit my leader. Anyone finds a blue with a croc in him you can keep the croc as my gift to bluefish insanity.
Dark great report you're right about needing flashy surface metals to get them, that water wasn't toilet water it was diarrhea water!

[cowherder]

I got 3 bass at nomoco today on clams, to 34.5". 2 keepers, one short. Kept one at 28" because I didn't know I was going to get another bigger one. I don't know if the 34.5" spawned yet but it was fat, like with eggs, so I let it go. Darkskies great report and details! You guys sound like you all had an awesome day. Pebbles I was reading the April reports, I hope you feel better soon, the fish are biting!

[lostatsea]

Fished Island Beach yesterday morning before sunrise. Got one bass on a pencil popper, bass was 27.5" Once the sun came up started hitting blues on metal, got a few to 9 pounds. We had a lot of fun. Darkskies looks like you have been able to get out and fish, I'm glad to see you are catching and having a good time. I hope you feel better Pebbles, hope it's not serious. Take care and best wishes.

[buckethead]

Nice catches guys wtg! Pebbles I hope you are able to get out there soon when you feel better, would like to see you get into some fish too.

[killie]

went fishing this morning. need I say more?

[LennyD]

looks like you guys getting fish all over.
I have not done any surf fishing yet this year, just on my kayak, and I'm doing good.
thanx for everyone for the report,keep up the good work.

lennyd

[SharkHart]

Sunday onn the boat from squan to sandy hook, dead seas

[DarkSkies]

went fishing this morning. need I say more?

Someone said as soon as your feet touched Jersey soil the bite in Ocean County was stopped quicker than Raid kills bugs dead. Any truth to that?




Congrats to the guys who got the fat bass today, some nice fish.
Wish I could have been there.
Maybe this week.
Shark check your pms.

[DarkSkies]

Pebbles and I set out this morning for a repeat of yesterday's back bay bluefish action so she could see if her Finchaser custom rod would handle monster blues.

We missed the hot action in the morning, blues 8-16 were caught on poppers.

When we got there it was a slow pick. We made a move to a few other places. In all we hit about 7 places and only found fish in 3. At least it was some action, but nothing compared to Sat 5-1, where the action was sustained for 7 hours. Hey that's fishin.

We did meet a lot of great people and have some cool stories to tell. I'll try to post up some of the stories and pics in the approproate threads. Here's one of them so far...
http://stripersandanglers.com/Forum/...ead.php?t=6565
look for the rest by clicking the "New posts" button on the top of the page, middle of the command menu.

We got to the next back bay spot and they had a decent pick of slammer bluefish on poppers and metal. I set Pebbles up with a popper, I threw a Kastmaster with bucktail siwash. I hooked up with a nice one on the first cast and set Pebbles up with a krocodile spoon. She got a decent one but it came unbuttoned. We both had a few more hits, even as it was bright as heck out there with the sun high in the sky. The fish were there because they were feeding on small spearing in the murky water.


All about the kids fishin...
The real stars of the bite there were the younger people and kids. Some of them were bailing fish as the bite was hot for about an hour and gradually lessened. We met some cool people and I got some nice pics.

Then we hit a few other locations trying to get Pebbles to land a fish. No luck until we met Chris and the Bluefish Warriors but by then we had to head back home.

In all it was a real nice day on the water. Got a chance to meet some great people, and scout some more locations.

We even found 1 more swan, and the BANANA PEEL that Rip left at the beach!

We had fun in the sun and the hazy slightly overcast sky. The bite was naturally better whenever the sun hid behind the clouds for a bit. Being out there and not having to be home was a bonus in itself.

And it was good to see the kids catching fish, part of a new generation being turned onto fishing and the outdoors.

[cardoc765]

So my parents have been after me to take them fishing so they could have a try at some big blues and stripers. We made a day of it yesterday. Started out in the back at the top of the tide. We used bunker and clams all day. Within 10 minutes I got a really nice hit that tore my bait right off the hook.

After about another hour and no hits (only crabs stealing bait), we decided to make a move. With the out going tide, I decided that the ocean might be a better bet for them to hook up. So we headed to nomoco and got set up again. Then about an hour and a half before low, my dad lost his virginity and caught a really pretty short. He was soooo happy. I was happy to see him finally get one. Made me happier to show him that he can get them too.

Shortly after that (about 45 mins before low) I got what to me felt like the biggest hookup I had yet all season. That thing chewed the bait and when he finally swallowed it and felt that hook, oh man he took off. I set the hook and all i heard was drag. He slowed down and then took off again. My mistake was palming the reel to slow him down and making sure the hook was set good. All of a sudden as i was stopping him from taking drag, poooof he was gone. I thought, maybe a big blue and cut my leader. Nope, the braid had snapped on me higher up. Still this morning, all i think about is what i should have done differently and going thru the motions in my head. Kicking myself in the butt, because I should have know better than to try and stop a fish in the ocean surf from running. Oh well, hopefully next time. If it wouldn't have felt like the biggest one so far this season, i wouldn't be so hard on myself. My family is very close and support each other very much. My mom was jumping up and down when i had it on, and all i wanted was to land a big fish with them there.

Does braid really deteriorate that much in a season? It's new and yes i have been fishing quite a bit this year. Ima peel some off today and get ready for my next time out.

Hey Dark, we told you RIP brings bananas for a snack. NOt only does he do that, but he leaves the peels behind to mess everyone elses mojo up since he didnt get any LOL LOL LOOL LOL

Sorry RIP had to throw that in. lmao

[cardoc765]

Mrs cardoc wanted me to post that she got 2 sea robins as well. Really nice big ones too. Here come the fluke soon!!!!!!

[fishinmission78]

All about the kids fishin...
The real stars of the bite there were the younger people and kids. Some of them were bailing fish as the bite was hot for about an hour and gradually lessened. We met some cool people and I got some nice pics.

Great report Dark and Co. Anytme you can get kids into fish it's golden.
Fished IBSP yesterday, crazy bass and blue action near the current. Blues to 13#, metal. Got one bass for the table 33" on a shad early on. Today was a lot slower for me, only a few big blues, outgoing tide.