Nice effort, Charlie, the storms were a little hairy last night.
I definitely agree with that, the understatement of the year.
Last year and for a few solid years before that we enjoyed hot action with big blues and teen bass in many of the inside spots almost until Columbus Day. This year sucks in those areas by comparison. I'm not too accepting of it either, just crabby.
Fishin report 9-23 AM
Had 1 1/2 hrs for some hit and run fishing starting at 6:45 am. Started by casting for albies, my first albie effort this year. I had a cool old-skool rig Finchaser made up for me but there were no albies to be found this morning, either on the surface or blind casting.
There was an abundance of small bait in the wash and pockets, very small profile, not spearing, maybe rainfish approx 1-1 1/2" long. No mullet or other bait in the mix where I was.
After casting awhile and realizing the albies weren't showing, I switched to an ava 007 and picked up a few cocktail blues. Action died as it got brighter out, despite me making 2 more quick moves to similar areas holding bait.
The ocean wasn't that bad considering last night's storms. Not clear but not too dirty either, no weeds, and fishable. Saw a few kayakers out there, but not much action for them either. Ran into Shorelady and FoxyFisher on the way out, nice to meet you hardcore fishin gals.
Made a few more stops before giving up, beautiful dead water at each location. Ran into an old-time sharpie I hadn't seen in a while. We spent some time discussing how we feel we got cheated out of big surf bluefish this year. It's something we look forward to annually, and this year sucked for the surf guys in terms of consistency, if you compare it with the action just a few short years ago.
On the way home I made quite a few stops to check out for myself some intel about bait that had been passed along to me. The back bay area was pretty dirty and weedy from the rains.
Again, I want to state that many back areas that held bait last year are barren this year. Spearing are in abundance in many places, I don't see much difference in that amount.
However, mullet, peanuts, etc are less spread out than last year, particularly peanuts. I did find peanuts about 3", and some 6" mullet at one of the places I stopped at. They were about a 70/30 mullet to peanut ratio, almost the exact opposite from the numbers at this time 2 years ago.
There are some places where the mullet still remain thick. I'm not so sure all will be leaving with this full moon, only time will tell.
And as for adult bunker, I can report to the anglers out there, look for concentrations of adult bunker starting to show along Jersey any day now. You won't see miles of them, but they are there, and moving South, either slightly offshore or within view of the beach.
Good luck to all fishin this weekend.