All about sandeels and needlefish

[skinner]

Willie, you should have come over and fished NJ. The giant concentrations of sand eels made for some great fishing.

[hookset]

^ Yessir!

[DarkSkies]

X2, learned a lot from reading it. I too wish we had more sandeels this year. IMO without them it killed the season.

Willie, you should have come over and fished NJ. The giant concentrations of sand eels made for some great fishing.

You guys nailed it, (and BTW Plugginpete thanks for your post, very informative )
LI surfcasters had a relatively poor year in 2011 because of the lack of inshore bait, specifically sand eels.
So much so, that the most resourceful ones were coming over to NJ to fish....

I hate to be Debbie Downer here, but the news so far on the sand eel front is not good.

[DarkSkies]

A few thoughts, thanks to intel provided by Finchaser, and some other of the old timers, who have feelers out for all kinds of fishing, and have a handle on what is where, so good, that it's almost like when bait is around, or a big fish gets caught....they know about it that day..... Thank God for the old-timers and their memories....you younger folks could learn a lot from them...I have......



1. Last year a lot of fish were sustained offshore, beyond 3 miles, by sand eels, squid, anchovies, sardines, and herring.....

2. This year the forage base has changed.....the big bluefish that have been out at the reefs and close inshore points, have been feeding on sardines, and squid, as their chief forage base.

3. According to the old timer intel, these sand eels that had been so abundant, moreso than in several years, have not shown yet, even at these closer offshore spots.

4. When you have lobstermen and commercial fishermen all giving you the same intel, ya might want to listen to what they have to say....

5.Therefore, as we say we are "waiting for the sand eels" to come in....it may not happen this year.

6. Or it may not happen to the extent and with the robustness that it has happened in recent years.

7. I am hoping that proves not to be true. However, I have been around long enough to see the cause and effect of much great fishing directly related to the amount of bait in the water....and simply put, if those sand eels don't come in, the 2012 Fall fishing at Sandy Hook and IBSP could prove to be a bust.


8. Right now, with sand eels being found nowhere offshore that these fishermen are fishing....it looks like it might happen that way....and Fall surf fishing could be poor. If the sand eels don't show uo, the late fishing will be driven by bunker, and possibly herring.....which could take surf fishing out of the equation, making a boat necessary to chase the fish on the bunker....




I hope this proves not to be true....conditions can always change for the better....
But as of now I am not counting on those sand eels showing up....

[plugginpete]

I hope this proves not to be true....conditions can always change for the better....
But as of now I am not counting on those sand eels showing up....

Hey DS this might be the year for us finally, while you Jersey guys get short changed. Like you said you never know. Keep the faith brother, and if your fall fishing is bad you know you are always welcome over here. Just let me know a day ahead of time. Here is a report from a private boat today, fishing off FI, out of LI...
It's still not translating to fish for us on the beach, but at least it is more promising than last year -

"Fished this morning trolling bunker spoons east of JI. Monster blues in the 30 - 40' depths with some radio chatter from 50' of the same. One boater was jigging in 25'just west of the inlet and also hooking up.Lots of similar reports from 40' to the west.
Did not see any bunker on top but mounds of sand eels on the floor. Also ran across some rain bait but not much."

[DarkSkies]

Update on sandeels....

I get intel from many trusted sources.
Some of it I can't post, and that will always be the case, as sources trust me in return.

However I wanted to update my previous comments on sandeels.
Since the hurricane I have been all over NJ and met some really great people.

One such group was fishing the Sandy Hook area about 2 weeks before Sandy. They were catching very big blues that were spitting up sandeels.

They happened to have lobster fishermen in their family, always a great source for what is out there offshore, and may be important to guys who fish inshore and in the surf. They agreed that the sandeel presence this year, was nothing of the magnitude it was last year.

Nonetheless, the sandeels were around Sandy Hook, in limited quantities, sometime in October.
I want to document that here for accuracy.

These storms probably chased them far offshore.
I am still slightly optimistic that we may see some, but cautiously optimistic.

[voyager35]

Just a heads up that on Sunday we were on our way blackfishing and off the SRI buoy we marked small bait about 20 feet down. In the past those formations have been sand eels. I cannot say for sure if they were because we weren't fishing for bass. We did not see them per se. But they sure looked like sand eels to me by the marks on the finder.

[CharlieTuna]

It amazes me how different the reports are from state to state. This spring we had them in Cape Cod bay, all sizes, from 2" to massive 12" ones that were almost as thick as the american eels.