Sea bird behavior and what it tells us

[storminsteve]

No apologies necessary from anyone just having a really really bad day.
Hope no one takes offense and you all have a great season.Back to my Kettle One.

We all have bad days finchaser. If you want your bad days to end you should dump dark and let me do the scouting for you. ds does not take clear pics, those stains in the water could be sunken boats for all we know! All you have to do is put me on the cell phone relay and I will do all the scouting you want, at your service.(just kidding dark, maybe ) by the way what the heck is a kettle one?

[buckethead]

You can tell it's winter when we are going back and forth bickering over whether a stain in the water is herring or not. Inquiring minds want to know fin chaser. What is Kettle one are you cooking herring for valentines dinner?

[finchaser]

Vodka

[surfstix1963]

Ah Kettle nice vodka,it's either Grey Goose or Kettle for me on the rocks sometimes out of the bottle when I have a bad day.

[storminsteve]

Umm you said kettle one. Ketel One? Why didn't you say so party on dudes!

[DarkSkies]

A few thoughts on this, and then hopefully we can move on......


The birds were sitting on herring.
There were no bunker around at the time and the only thing that body of fish under them could have been.... was herring.
Unfortunately there were no bass around at the time...this was late December and the fishing action had ground to a standstill....most of the migrating fish had moved South at that time.....a rash of cold spells and small noreasters was one probable cause in that happening.......

This caused a situation where where there schools of herring around, moving in and out of the the inlets and **other areas.
**For the most part there were no bass to harass or feed on these herring so in many cases they went unmolested.

I was one of the first to scout these herring, having found them soon after things cleared up from the hurricane and the ocean stabilized a bit.
Despite being told they never ventured far past the mouth of an inlet, I was finding them in deepwater harbors and other deep channel areas well beyond the inlet mouths......

I was also one of the lucky first to catch fish at night in inlets after the storm, despite being told it wasn't a night bite....and discovering that (in some limited cases)with some teen fish, that it was....

[DarkSkies]

**Sometime after everyone (including the old timers) thought they had also vanished, on one of my scouting trips I found adult bunker in the back of a NJ River.....

I''m not going to talk about the bunker here, or it may get too confusing...






Just the Herring......
The fish that I spotted and took pics of, were herring....with no bass in the area to pursue them, they leisurely made their way South along the beaches until they got to some of the inlets...and came in.......

This may not be the way that folks usually come upon pods of herring, but that was the case in late December 2012.

These herring pics were taken in the ocean.......
there were no rocks, or submerged boats. I know all the boulder fields out there intimately.... and can assure the readers there were no submerged boulder fields where those stains in the pics are....directly under those herring was nothing but sandy bottom.....








Sometimes, we are mistaken in our observations.
On a sunny day with clouds, it's easy to mistake cloud cover for "stains" in the water....when I took the pics it was a nasty, dreary, raw, overcast day......no shadows from clouds.


I'm far from perfect....and only human.....
Fin, while accurate 99% of the time.....
is not perfect either...........
And he was not accurate for this 1% ....(.although I will probably never live it down as he can't admit when he is wrong)

I stand by my statement that those were herring.......

Suffice it to say we don't always fish the same areas......
A. When the herring showed up no bass were chasing them initially.....further proof of this is that one of the Bogans was out fishing for bass one day during this time.....they were livelining herring, and still no bass were caught....

B. This lasted for about a week, until the first weekend of January........
If you go to Colin the Average Angler's website... you can find exactly when he was talking about the herring showing up, with bass on them....almost a week after I took these pics.


I might also mention that when you all saw me "bickering" back and forth with the old grouchy basstid here in Jan, and he was saying "the fish were gone, there was no night bite" (though truthfully the old timers had just started getting them end of day).....

And he was yelling at me telling me I was a fool for fishing at night.......
After I found them, & got over 100 fish in the 3 nights after that.... he stopped yelling for awhile........

[DarkSkies]

To wrap up........

1. I hope you folks got a little info from the herring pics I shared.

2. I'm not fighting with Finchaser.....he has imparted too much knowledge for me to disrepect him.....and he has forgotten, more than I will ever know....about fishing.

3. I don't have a camera like he has....that grouchy basstid can take pics of the dingleberries on a rat's A** with his prosumer camera......lots of times I have to think about the pics I post, before I post them....to prevent lurkers from pinpointing the location......I am reminded daily when seeing the pics that others post, that these considerations don't mean anything to them....Fin and I talk about that all the time.......different world out there today.......

4. Nonetheless....I do appreciate it when he barks at me......my Dad used to do the same, much worse......so Finchaser yelling is nothing like I was used to growing up...in fact I consider it an honor to be yelled at by the Old Grouchy Basstid...if a week goes by and he doesn't yell at me for something, I worry about the crusty old barnacle.....
So you members who are concerned, please let it roll on by....(buckethead..... liked the "bickering" observation.....)

5. I can't say anything more on this, or at 6pm tonight Vito, Pasquale, and Nunzio will show up at my door telling me I have to take a ride with them..shopping for cement shoes.....
http://stripersandanglers.com/Forum/...o-s-Open/page3











Hope you folks enjoyed the info, and learned some things as well.
I hope I don't come off the wrong way in these threads, or any other threads here...........

Everything I learned in fishing, I learned the hard way....many many nights of not catching.....and not being able to see patterns......
I still get criticized for the massive blocks of time I spend out there hunting for fish when they are around....
http://stripersandanglers.com/Forum/...=nomad+fishing

**If I came across the wrong way I apologize.......

I do know my abilities., and having spent so much time out there, I know this Winter bite very well, sometimes better than friends who live down next to the water.........but I will always be grateful for different opinions.......and the knowledge the OGB has generously imparted....


When you consider all the opinions that go out on different internet websites, half of them being inaccurate and misleading......the opinions and characterizations of Fin and the Old Farts at Castaways really are worth listening to, and in many cases are spot-on explanations for what is happening, at that moment.....