NJ Fishing Reports for June 2014.....www.StripersAndAnglers.com

[DarkSkies]

^ I thought I was the only fool out there.....way to go, people.......cause if you're fishing right now from land it can't be about the glory...IMO there are few glorious moments left for NJ striped bass Spring surf fishing....those out there.... are out because of the love of fishing.....

Fished 1:30 - 3:30 AM...hoping for a repeat of the prior night's action.....

The E wind was not bad when I got out there...but after the tide change, as has been the pattern, it got progressively worse....scattering any bait that was on the flats.....

Couldn't find any of those larger shrimp while wading...I did see limited numbers of grass shrimp....
And exactly 2 cinder worms in the water as I walked back along the shoreline to see what bait was around....
I'm thinking if that spawn does happen, it will be late, from 1-2 days after tomorrow's full moon.....
http://stripersandanglers.com/Forum/...der-worm-hatch

No action at all for me.....
I really hate that freaking E wind, for NJ fishing....

[robmedina]

Good to know DS- Sunday looks like better wind for the yak. I am gonna take my 2 cinder worms I tied today just incase.

[storminsteve]

Well I fished nomoco this morning. Found some of montys white water it looked beautiful. Threw pencil popper bucktail and assorted swimming plugs. No hits runs or errors. Couldn't even get arrested for what I was throwing. What happened to the bluefish?

[DarkSkies]

2 night report...have been putting in a tremendous amount of time fishing since Tuesday night when I lucked into all that night bluefish activity....these last few nights have felt like chasing ghosts of the past, as I am starting to feel there are no discernible patterns anymore. I have gotten pretty depressed about it, and some of the best fishermen I know, tell me they are quitting until fall.
(then, 3 nights later, they're back out there again.... )

Thu night....Failure.....sinking into the abyss of Depression.....
I had 2 areas that had produced in the past. Fish almost guaranteed this time of year. Both back bay. First area totally dead, no visible bait anywhere. Still looking for those cinder worms, I was extremely disappointed to only have found (2) of them 2 nights before.
Went to another area, fished hard....best I could manage to do was raise and miss one fish at 4am.....popper....I put myself in a bad position just for the opportunity to see if that area had some fish......I'll tell the story in the future when the embarassment has worn off........total skunk for me....

When I was done with that trip, I told myself I would quit....I had just about had it....these sporadic bites.....very scattered amounts of fish from land...and most of our old haunts being destroyed by jetty replenishment......
In another post I mentioned not fishing the jetties too much this season because of the small fish there....the truth is,.....there aren't even a lot of tiny fish to be had from fishing those jetties........it really is dismal.....
In the past, places like Monmouth Beach, with good jetties and structure, would hold 20-30 lb bass at night, this time of year, for weeks at a time.....now that has all evaporated....and I am more depressed about it, than anyone could know......

So I had it in my head, that I was giving up....not going to bang my head against the wall any more, for such scattered success....
(Of course, we probably have all said that, at one time or another..... )












Fri night..6-14-14....redemption.....

I haven't been going into too much detail about it, but in addition to fishing, I have been poking every nook and cranny I know of, to find concentrations of bait....
Other than the bunker, the rainfish in the channels.....and the small flounder and fluke on the bottom of those channels....there is not much bait on the sidelines.....
I have walked miles of shoreline and sedges, late night, and early morning, to find very few species of juvenile baitfish, in our NNJ bay and river areas....this has not given me confidence.....fish won't come in and hold, in an area, without food to hold them.

What a lot of people are experiencing is a one day, hour, or segment in time, of success....and without this food in place.....the fish move on....it has become very frustrating for a lot of us....

Last night I played a hunch... fished 12-4AM....decided to concentrate on an estuary I know of, way in the back bay......
It was a good hypothesis....there were a lot of grass shrimp, they were tiny.... 1/4 to 1/2" at the largest....baby minute grass shrimp...
the fish were feeding on them....you could hear them occasionally break water....was very low key.....not a lot of surface activity....

It took me a long time to figure it out.....
The first hour, I only managed to raise 2 fish....one on a popper, the other on a small metal lip....I realized that only the smallest presentation would have a chance, and went through every small profile in my bag...even throwing 3/8 oz jigheads with 3" curly tail (anticipating cinder worm activity)....That small grub and jig usually always catches, when I can't get them to hit anything else....and still, I was failing.....

I was ready to give up, and leave, when I adjusted my retrieve and started catching fish on poppers......
I really had to tease or **** them off.....and the activity ramped up as I dialed in a bit more......I missed a lot of fish.....the adrenalin took some of my depression away and put me on full alert.....



Ended up with 11 blues to 7#
1 small legal bass.
All released......

[storminsteve]

When I was done with that trip, I told myself I would quit....I had just about had it....these sporadic bites.....very scattered amounts of fish from land...and most of our old haunts being destroyed by jetty replenishment......
So I had it in my head, that I was giving up....not going to bang my head against the wall any more, for such scattered success....
(Of course, we probably have all said that, at one time or another..... )
......

Yeah I said I was going to quit right after reading your report! You must have tapped intro the finchaser private pond that you always talk about because I fished nomoco this morning, long walk on the beach. I got blanked and so did everyone else there. Oh, there was the clam guy that got a skate and 2 sea robbins but nothing much else going on. Then I read your report and you were catching? I quit!!!!! I'm going to golf from now on it's alot easier and you get to use the golf cart when you have to walk long distance! You know Im just kidding you great report glad to see there are still some fish around. On the way home I went down by the jetties and watched some guys fluke for 10 minutes. They got 3 short fluke. At least it was something. I think before I go fishing for stripers or bluefish next time I will go in the afternoon, try for some fluke, and then shoot for a bass or blue because it is just lame as hell with the stripers lately.
Come on meat men keep some more 3 bonus tag fish. There are hardly any left and you have tools like jonny bucktails and the other charter dudes killing every big fish they can get their hands on!

[CharlieTuna]

Fri night..6-14-14....redemption.....

I haven't been going into too much detail about it, but in addition to fishing, I have been poking every nook and cranny I know of, to find concentrations of bait....
Other than the bunker, the rainfish in the channels.....and the small flounder and fluke on the bottom of those channels....there is not much bait on the sidelines.....
I have walked miles of shoreline and sedges, late night, and early morning, to find very few species of juvenile baitfish, in our NNJ bay and river areas....this has not given me confidence.....fish won't come in and hold, in an area, without food to hold them.

......

Interesting that you would bring that up. We are noticing the same thing here. There was an online board discussion about the fish in MA and why they have not shown up yet in the canal and other places. Some guys blame the lessening mackerel population. Others blame the winter. The other fish are here and being caught but the bigger bass not so much. I agree with what I have read here. We are putting too much pressure on these fish.

[DarkSkies]

Interesting that you would bring that up. We are noticing the same thing here. The other fish are here and being caught but the bigger bass not so much. I agree with what I have read here. We are putting too much pressure on these fish.

Charlie, thanks for sharing your perspective.

I hope folks Coast-Wide can start to see this as inter-connected. In the next few weeks hundreds of guys from NJ and LI will make the trip to the Canal and Montauk, hoping to catch the larger bass that don't seem available now to land based anglers down here....I think a lot of them are gonna be disappointed this year....friends who fish MA regularly claim the numbers and sizes are way down.....
There are no easy answers other than to recognize there is a problem, and work towards a reasonable solution.....

Yeah I said I was going to quit right after reading your report! You must have tapped intro the finchaser private pond that you always talk .......it is just lame as hell with the stripers lately.

Steve no worries..... I couldn't complete the same level of catching 2 nights in a row. In the other post I talk about lack of pattern. That's what happened as I met up with monty and we spent all night, driving all over, trying to find a few fish. By morning's end, he was high hook with 1 bluefish, 0 for me.....
His energy level is like that of a wind up doll with no off switch. He'e older than me, but his energy drink fueled bursts last night made me feel old...
It has been very frustrating, to say the least......

As for the Finchaser pond, that must have evaporated as well.
The OGB and the rest of the Old Farts are out there every day, sometimes twice a day, at the times that should yield some fish....More often than not they have been coming up empty-handed, this year.....

[DarkSkies]

In the other post I talk about lack of pattern. That's what happened last night as I met up with monty and we spent all night, driving all over, trying to find a few fish. By morning's end, he was high hook with 1 bluefish, 0 for me.....
It has been very frustrating, to say the least......


I fished from 12-8:30am, running into Monty...we teamed up and drove all over looking to find s afew fish on artificials at night....
The N and NW winds made presentation almost impossible.....I failed,, can not even claim to have raised a fish......
Monty landed a bluefish, right before sunup, plus got one of his Hogys chopped before the hook by a crafty bluefish........

Always a pleasure, and entertaining, fishing with Monty.

He must have made hundreds of casts to get those fish...
I gave up far earlier. I was shot from the previous trips, and completely lost all steam, despite monty feeding me energy drinks throughout the night.....

Once I woke up, tried to fish last part of the flood tide for 45 minutes....nothing at all for me, nor for the dozen or so boats I could see inshore fluking.....You people who don't like the boat guys, should realize that they don't alsways catch tons of fish....

[J Barbosa]

Fished with Rui yesterday off the kayaks. We changed it up for once and decided to target fluke instead of bluefish.

I ended up with one keeper and a bunch that would have been keepers based on last years size limits.

Rui caught three nice keeper fluke.

[Monty]

running into Monty...we teamed up and drove all over looking to find s afew fish on artificials at night....

Always a pleasure, and entertaining, fishing with Monty.

Once I woke up, tried to fish last part of the flood tide for 45 minutes....

Likewise Dark, I always enjoy fishing with you.....First time you fell a sleep while fishing with me..
And lately its been lots and lots of exercise. I am thinking the last two times we met up and fished if you add the miles up we walked its about 10 miles....easily. And we caught 1 fish..... So if you do the math, miles walked per fish, as a team we have 20 miles walked per fish. That I think is a Googan type team record.

[robmedina]

First time you fell a sleep while fishing with me..

Hey Monty you have to take it easy on Dark, he is an old man

[J Barbosa]

The fluke I kept on Saturday had several shrimp in its stomach. I am seeing a lot more spearing the past two weeks.

[robmedina]

The fluke I kept on Saturday had several shrimp in its stomach. I am seeing a lot more spearing the past two weeks.

John - roughly what size were the shrimp?

[J Barbosa]

Slightly smaller than a quarter.

[robmedina]

ok cool. Thanks. I have been tying up some grass shrimp patterns- was curious what size the natural ones were so I could attempt to "match the hatch"

[fishinmission78]

Nice going on the fluke gents. I have been switching over to them. Mostly small ones on gulp. It does not seem like the big ones are in full force on island beach here yet but still some action. A bud is still getting bluefish. up to 10pounds, all on bunker chunks. Sunrise and the hour after has been the best for him for you guys who want them.

[finchaser]

My friend caught a 43 pound cobia yesterday in ocean County off the beach on a bunker head.

[robmedina]

My friend caught a 43 pound cobia yesterday in ocean County off the beach on a bunker head.

That's an awesome catch!

[DarkSkies]

^ Outstanding catch by Mike's son Terry.
Rob, you ain't so far behind me in age....just wait till ya hit 50, we have a special surprise in store for ya.

[storminsteve]

fished nomoco 5-6:30 am. Water calm and clean, nada.