Time to bring this up again...
Sharing my personal experience and lessons learned....
There was an incredibly hot bite, from the rocks....during the Winter of 2011...
Fish were caught up tio 35# at night...middle of the winter.....when those rock crabs, squid, rainfish, and herring brought the fish in close every night....50 fish nights were possible, and being achieved, by some of the old timers I knew....
I spent a lot of nights out there because I knew we weren't likely to see a bite that good again....
http://stripersandanglers.com/Forum/...Fishing-Thread
Monty and I were talking about this the other day.....
Because I was out there on those rocks at least 5 nights a week....I caught a few hundred fish that Winter alone.....making my numbers great for that year...
There was also a good schoolie bite...dawn and dusk...but most of the people I was fishing with weren't interested in those smaller fish.....we were targeting the larger ones....
The only way to find those fish consistently was to fish deep in the night...when everyone else was safe asleep in their beds.....as we fished in frigid sub 30 degree weather....and the ocean temps remained in the high to low 40's for most of the Winter...
Good times....great fishin...but if anyone was jealous ....
The "Dark Side" part of that...Is.......
I lost quite a few customers because of that addiction...and put off a ton of new potential business...in order to be out there as much as I was....
With the jetties being covered we aren't likely to see that bite in NJ ever again..or at least a very long time....I knew it was special....I enjoyed that fishing more than most can imagine....I still when I go back and look at the pics....
And remember how robust that bite was....if you timed it right you could catch 20 fish in an hour....it was something that I'll remember as long as I live.....
The reality is....I also paid a heavy price to be out there at night...That's the lesson to be learned here...
Remember in the future...with opportunities becoming more limited....unless you are local to an area where the bite is...sometimes extreme sacrifices are needed to be on the fish, when they are needed...
You really have to ask yourself if the sacrifices are worth it to you...to be out there for the choice feeding windows...