Dispatches from fly fishing for striped bass and more along the Jersey Shore and the Delaware River
theaverageangler.com 732.261.7291 colin@theaverageangler.com
Another year in the books at Cape Island Resort in Cape May. We're getting better and more efficient at closing things up for the winter. What usually was a weekend is now a quick run down, kill it for a few hours, and then a ride back home. Every year we question if it's worth the expense of keeping it but then every time we're down there and really enjoying Cape May it's worth it. But it ain't cheap. When we bought in 2020 the fees were $4,300 for the May 1st to Nov 1st season. After a corporate takeover, now X2, it's up to $9,700. The way most say to look at it is if you rented a place for a week in Wildwood Crest or Cape May it would cost you $6,000, so, it's a bargain. But it's still almost 10 grand a year.
Luckily two years a go we added a nice shed to out place so there's no more dragging the furniture and bikes inside for the winter. People say they wish we had it all year long, I don't think so as it's off th table from Nov 1st to May 1st- like out of sight and out of mind. It leaves me something to look forward to in and around the start of the spring striped bass run.
I'm up to my nuts in burning 100 year-old lead paint off the house, where it's not brick, and sanding, priming and paining it. That goes for the windows and doors as well and if you've ever removed the old window caulk and redid it then you know. The idea of sanding and filling and "feathering" the high spots? Yeah, not me. It may look good from 500 feet away but catch it on the right, or wrong, angle when the sun hits it and it looks like someones back with bad acne.
The 21st, the day I called it, is Tuesday. I will catch a fish that day or will at least give it a good effort. I'm heading to a secret spot that you most likely have never been to. I hope you took off- Tuesday is the day. Bass on the beach. And if I were going local, I'd be fishing the Jersey side of the Raritan Bay, maybe in a town that, say, has a boardwalk.
Well I guess I kinda am. While I could really give two shits about who's catching, it's the where that I like to watch each spring and fall. These fish amaze me, and you know, especially bass on the move. So, do I care that the Laura Lee Fleet and and other boats out of the South Fork of Long Island are running two a days mauling and hauling and tossing 200 fish around each trip? No. What I like to see in the migration patterns and timing. Kind of like my own On The Water magazine migration map.
So the bass have hit the South Shore and are down along the Rockaways and in and around the Lower New Bay back to Perth Amboy and in and around Sandy Hook and Breezy Point. But, for now, it's a boat fishing game. This weekend will be a total shit show out there was the boat traffic will be insane. Can the boats push the bait and bass to the beaches? Only time will tell. There's bass around The Hook and down into Long Branch, but they are off, way off.
Some things we know to be true, at anytime. Live eels will find the big fish, especially down deep and trolled through the water column where their irritable scent can attract a big fish from hundreds of feet away. But what was really interesting was Captain. John McMurray's revelation that the sand eels showed up. Seems a tad early for that.
What I have found over the years when it comes to bait and the fall run is that we usually have one good bait, like solid and in big numbers. If we have a stupid peanut run then the sand eels don't show up, and vice versa. The beauty with sand eels is the birds are always over them, well most of the time, if the bass are pushing them up to the surface.
This weekend will bring out the hordes of beach fishermen and it'll only take one or two big fish pics to bring out the report waiters and watchers to get the fall run in gear. Remember, I called October 21st for the season to start, and that's three days away.
Got this email today, so I guess it's official. I also received a card in the mail with the same news. Thanks to the staff at Orvis for holding down the fort and representing Orvis so well for so long. Hats off to Fishing Manger Bruce Turner and Store Manger Andrew Hamilton. Best of luck in your new endeavors. There's a big Orvis hole now in the tri-states area.
Well well well. Just in time for the ASMFC Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board meeting on October 29th. What will they do with this?
Maryland's YOY 2025 index came out and 2025 is yet again another year of poor recruitment. While it's been the best, of the worst, year since 2020 it still falls well below the target. The last solid year classes were 2018, 2017, and 2015. And the earlier are now within the 28 -31" slot limit.
Virginia came back low as well. A tad better than 2024 but below the historical geometric mean. The last year they were above that line was 2022. The Chesapeake is hurting.
Interestingly I saw Jim Hutchinson's (The Fisherman magazine) post on what we can expect during this upcoming meeting. He laid out an argument that, in fact, we could be on a solid path of rebuilding, just not in time for the hoped 2029 deadline. If you look below the graph combines two charts the ASMFC supplied during the public comment period.
Looking at the combined chart we see the SSB target is met, maybe, by 2033, just four years past that target of 2029. That could be used for those that are pushing for Status Quo- or keeping everything the same. They'll argue the data, mostly from the FES (Fishing Effort Surveys) from MRIP, are spotty at best. And if they can raise enough doubt, like they do in the courtroom, maybe the ASMFC will punt once again and keep things business as usual, promising to address things in the near future. And if they do act it won't be in time for this year's fall run where we'll hammer down on those 2017 & 2018 year class fish.
The agenda and public comment summaries for each public hearing have been published HERE. If you went to one of the meetings you can read the synopsis of any comments that people made. I commend Emily Franke for listening, taking notes, and including them in the official documents. I stood up and was heard. Below are the three points that I made,
1) For-hire (Charter and head boats) and commercial operations should be managed together, and the data about catches and mortality be combined, separate from purely recreational anglers
2) The Delaware River and Bay needs to be managed as a fishery, one body of water. Not three states having three sets of rules at the same times. NJ and Pa are 500 feet apart in some places.
3) I hated to say it, but I had to. Maybe the slot has to be expanded. Small fish one year, current slot the next year, bigger the next, and maybe even a trophy type slot every so and so years. Like no other sized harvest for that year but one fish over such and such a size, that needs to be tagged and reported like the hunters do.
It's going to be a hoot, well it'll give me chest pain, listening to those "shareholders", and the alliances between the states, fighting for votes to make change, keep it same, or just kick the proverbial can down the road.
October 29th will also just be about a week into the start of the fall run here in New Jersey. October 21st- put it on your calendar. I called it here. And I'm talking shore based of course.
It's one of the most contentious and polarizing topics when it comes to commercial fishing. Menhaden. Bunker. Pogies. It was the center of the book written by H. Bruce Franklin,
The Most Important Fish in the Sea. Why is it such a big deal? Well, it's the story of fish, and greed. Bunker are a huge staple in the diet of predator fish, and mammals, and birds, and probably reptiles as well. Everything eats bunker. Just think of the species that we have around New Jersey that eat bunker for dinner, and breakfast, and lunch. And we're not just talking about adult bunker, but the peanuts as well.
Flounder, bluefish, striped bass, weakfish, tuna, whales, ospreys, gulls, eagles, cormorants, foxes, stray dogs, and yes even some humans...yuk. When you go fishing and make another excuse as to why you're not catching, "There wasn't any bait", is always an easy go to. But it's true. Find the bait and you may find the fish. When those boat guys head out in the spring and fall what are they looking for? They're looking for those Nat Geo moments when the birds are over eaters preying on bunker. It's better than any electronics you have on the boat.
For years my buddy Paul Eidman has been in the fight to save the menhaden as the leader of the Menhaden Defenders. Now some see Paul as a PETA tree-hugging conservationist turned activist, which may be slightly true, but he's been a thorn in the side of the reduction
fleets down in Virginia and Canada. I first joined Paul in Washington D.C. in 2012 when we headed down to the Good Ole' Boys territory during the ASMFC Menhaden Management meeting.
It was a heated meeting. The Virginia and southern boys wanted to protect Omega Protein, operator of the largest reduction fleet fisheries on the East Coast, and down into the Gulf of America (Used to be Mexico). Back then 200,000 metric tons was the quota and that number has grown to 230,000 since then. And of course it was during that meeting that I met what I
call the Axis of Evel of New Jersey's fisheries management representatives, Nowalsky, Himchek, and Foti. They would go on to vote with their Virginia brothers who, at the end, pulled
the race card by prancing in minority workers from Omega to demonstrate who would really be affected if the quotas were reduced. I remember watching the workers standing
there with not all of them really aware of why they were there or what was going on. Jimmy Kellum, from Virginia, just sat there with a big old smile on his face like, Game, Set, Match. You can read my take from that December 2012 meeting, HERE.
Each year we see boats, and spotter planes as well, in and around New Jersey waters decimating entire schools of menhaden. While 80% of the take of menhaden, the reduction fishery, where bunker is reduced to make Omega rich supplements and ground up foods for pets and living things, 20% of the hauls are for the bait sector.
Bunker make great baits for traps, like lobster and crabs. We see bunker in both the spring and the fall. To note, bunker don't spawn in the bays and rivers, they spawn offshore and the eggs are brought into the estuaries with the tides. And besides being a meal, bunker are filter feeders, like mollusks, which do wonders when it comes to cleaning up bodies of water, especially the bays. Think the Raritan, and more importantly the Chesapeake. Just imagine getting ready for a party in your dusty and pet-dander filled house and the vacuum cleaner is broken.
So, what's this all about. Well the ASMFC has determined that, through all their science and data, they may have incorrectly determined the health of the menhaden biomass. If fact they were off by 37%, not taking into account natural mortality. On October 28th the ASMFC will hold their menhaden meeting, where reductions, in the reduction fishery, should be on the table. Some say they need to reduce that number by 300,000,000 pounds into order to have a 50% chance of not exceeding the fishing mortality rate.
So, right now, Virginia, and the share holders, and their friends from places like New Jersey, are preparing for a fight. And I'm sure that will be printing up T-shirts for those workers to again be pranced into some meeting sharing disparity to its employees, specifically of Omega Protein.
And closer to home word has gotten out that American shad and river herring,other key forage fish, are not at sustainable levels in the Delaware River. Recent studies have determined they are now depleted. And that is not good. The words out and the media, like The Philadelphia Inquirer, are taking notice and reporting on it. That's from article published today.
A white paper report was released in late September by the Partnership for the Delaware Estuary. It discusses not only American shad, but the river herring as well. River herring is a
collective term for blueback and alewives, which at times are hard to differentiate between the two. Both fishes live in the ocean, come into the Delaware Bay and River in late winter to spawn, and then the YOY make their way out into the ocean during the fall.
"American shad and river herring populations are now depleted in the Delaware River basin....". Reasons given for the historic decline, over a century, in both fishes are; overfishing, habitat fragmentation, low DO levels, and loss of access to the damming of tributaries. They also state that non-native and invasive predation also has be attributed to the decline in numbers.
The report also states that through seine surveys the YOY of American shad is robust, while the spawning fishes are depleted. That's kind of confusing, to me, like overfished and overfishing, in fisheries management jargon. Below you can see the juvenile numbers,
and above the spawning female index. Less spawning fish producing more juveniles, but, is that sustainable? Since 1999 the Pennsylvania Boat and Fish Commission has stocked shad in the Delaware, Lehigh, and Schuylkill Rivers. In the tributaries the stocking has been determined a success as many returns are found during seine surveys.
River herring did far worse during the New Jersey Striped Bass Seine Survey's conducted each year. While I'm sure the numbers were greater then zero, as seen below,
there is a marked downward trend in YOY found during those surveys. In 2012 New Jersey banned the commercial and recreational harvesting of river herring, much to the chagrin of striped bass fishermen who used to say, "One bass for every herring". From my friend's accounts they tell me it wasn't uncommon for anglers to catch hundreds of river herring on Sabiki
rigs and put them in holding tanks in the back of their vehicles. They'd be used for bait in the river or transported down to the beach and set free, on a hook. They also say selling them to tackle shops was a way to cover the gas, a pack of smokes, and a coffee or some beer.
Above is John Scelfo, an old friend from the Asbury Park Fishing Club, livelining a herring off 8th Avenue back in the day. Sadly he passed in September of 2023.
Interestingly the report discusses the impact that fishing, even catch and release fishing, has on American shad and river herring. "Constant fishing pressure also alters the genetics and life history of fish stocks through time". So, while you may not see a No-Target for striped bass in the near future, but hey who knows what the ASMFC will do, wording like this on these species may lead to stricter regulations.
And then there's always those striped bass to blame. "Predation can occur at a significant level to perpetuate a local collapse of river herring populations." Not only do we see that with river herring but north of the border in Canada they say striped bass are having a negative impact on salmonoids in spawning rivers. While guys tell me that bass love American shad, they would have to be pretty big to choke down a big buck or roe shad. While river herring are just a perfect sized, and shaped, snack for bass both big and small.
Also discussed are the effects of dredging in the rivers that serve big-city ports, water quality and flows, and predation by channel and blue cats, as well as northern snakeheads. Dam removals, or at least fish passages, can help spawning in the Delaware River tributaries.
And then let's circle back to the bunker for a minute. Is there any connection between Omega Protein, or the reduction fishery, and American shad and river herring? Yes there is. In regards to herring, there are river herring and Atlantic herring. So while these boats are harvesting some fish, others, like American shad and river herring, are caught and killed as by-catch. And don't think for a minute that when entire schools of bunker are swallowed up fishes like striped bass and tuna aren't caught up in the mix.
So we all have to look at one thing, sustainability. We have to look past 40 fish shad days at the New Hope Bridge, watching schools of river herring pinned to the banks in Burlington, pods of bunker being harassed by 30's, 40's, and 50's off the Highlands Bridge, or pockets full of peanuts in Jetty Country. The bigger picture is that these fisheries, from the ones we catch for fun or to eat, or the ones that the ones we catch for fun or to eat, eat, just aren't sustainable for a myriad of factors.
If we all just fly fished with single barbless hooks, from the shore, everything would be better and there'd be a lot more fish swimming. I'm just kidding. That's just the PETA tree-hugger in me coming out.
You can read that American shad/ river herring white paper, HERE.
After yesterday's post I received an email from a reader asking, "Can you really fish in that?". Well, the answer is yes. Is it easy? No. Is it for anyone? No. Can you catch in it? Yes. But there's some things you should figure out before you go otherwise it will be more for the fun of it than actually having a chance at catching.
Some say the best time to fish is before and after big weather. When the barometer starts to drop the fish get all tuned up. If there's bait around it gets all disoriented and caught up in the wave action near the beach. In the good old days, beach clams would get churned up and broken releasing the soft meals into the water. Beach replenishment has just about killed all of that. Just go down after a storm and see how many clam shells you find these days.
The hight of the weather event might not be the best times, especially for the fly rodder. The water tends to be too off color and the winds may exceed safe and effective casting. While your buddy standing next to you may be killing them with the bucktails or heavy plugs you'll be limited to say a 20 foot cast in and around the groins. But that's where the getting can some times be good.
Before the weather the water is usually clean and green which what I found the other day. Today, I am assuming, not so much. That's not to say protected areas in the rivers and bays can't produce, although there is a lot of water around with the tidal surges. Remember safety first. Some say abandon the waders for calf high boots with bibs. That way if you get caught in the water you won't head straight for the bottom. Spikes or studs will help with the footing. And eyewear should be considered as those flies find eyes and ears as they whizz past you on a failed cast. Bring wet weather gear and have extra clothes in the truck. And as far as casting, watch who's around you as that tight loop you think is behind you is 30 feet to the left or right, prime to catch a spin guy in the back, or front.
There's a difference between fishing white water, which the bass and fly rodder's love, and big weather. Times are tides and are effected by the winds and moon phases. New and full moons bring the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. So usually at some point in the tide it'll be safe and should still hold water. The winds can come from the south or the north. Below during a strong south I turned around to keep the fly and fly line out of the back of my skull. That's an 11 wt with a 350 gr. line, not only to cut the waves but the wind as well.
Fishing along an uninterrupted beach can be the most difficult but the bass move along the structure, if there's any, and the crashing wave action stuns the bait, that's of the swimming, scurrying, and burrowing types. When all else fails don't forget to throw out a mole crab fly as they are easily churned free on the beach scarps with the relentless wave pounding.
Moving to the groins. This can be great but you need to know your limitations, and most importantly the tides. You're not a spin fishermen so try and pretend to be one. Know where and when you can fish effectively, even if that's a 15 foot radius from where you're standing.
Above, that's Chris Roslan, throwing flies into a south side pocket during a NE wind. There's plenty of water there to hold a fish. Never turn your back to incoming waves, especially on the incoming, and remember there's those sneak-up-on-you rouge ones that'll chop your ankles out.
I remember taking the above picture of my buddy Rich. Somehow he didn't get cut out by the waves crashing at his feet. It's funny, he's a very, very part time fly fisherman, but made it several times into Popovic's Fleye Design, the above the opening image for Part II, The Patterns, on page 69. So be hyper-aware, that's all. Fishing the south side, if you're right handed, keeps the fly and line off your casting shoulder.
And as I searched for images to accompany this post I found a gem for the old salts that visit here. Name that spot before you read further. It was a favorite of mine and the Phillip's Ave. Gang, that's Roosevelt in the foreground and Whitehall in the distance. My back is pretty much touching the Pump House. If you go then you know what it looks like today. Disgusting.
There can be good fish to be had if you venture out from the comfort of the couch, or your Mother's basement. One thing to add about fishing the groins, know here you are if you happen to hook into a doozy. Consider walking it back to the beach for an easier and safe landing.
You'll also, maybe, be able to safely release it without giving it the "Toss For Life" back into the drink. That's Richie again, and yes that image was on page 223, the opening for Part III, Evolution of Fleye Design- Influences and Advances. Not bad for a spin guy.
Sounds like that commercial, "What's in your wallet?". I must be getting old, or dying. Hit the sack at 648 pm last night and woke at 3 am. I heard the rustle of the trees outside from the storm that has hit the tri-state area. While we're on the fringe of it here in Mercer County those down along the shore will be taking a beating. I fear for some this one could be worse then Sandy in 2012. The coastal flooding around the high tides will wreak havoc. We're watching what's happening down in Cape May because our house is located on one of the fingers off Cape May Harbor.
But what got me thinking as I laid there was a post I saw from Long Island fishermen Yugo Marinkovic. He was out, like he always is, fishing hard and landing a schoolie sized bass.
He took it home and prepared it for the table. He was surprised to see several rocks, one four ounces in size, in the striped bass's stomach. The only food source was a 12 inch fluke. So the question is, and it's been a tale from old times, Do fish eat rocks before a storm for ballast, or do they eat rocks to aid in digestion?.
I'm not the first person to tackle this question and in fact a quick AI/ Google/ everyone's an internet expert these days/ looked in the books, told me that Jimmy Fee from On The Water Magazine had tackled this same question back in 2021.
I did some digging in what I call my striped bass Bible, Fly fishing for Striped Bass by Rick Murphy, and a newer book by John Field's Fly Fishing for Trophy Striped Bass. I couldn't find any reference to rocks being in the striped bass's diet, with both books outlining what that fishes normal diet is. Neither mentioned striped bass intentionally targeting rocks for ballast, in big storms, or as an aid in digestion.
Animals with gizzards, like those without grinding teeth, like birds, such as your back-yard chickens, utilize gastroliths, or gizzard stones, as an aid in digestion. Humans use the mechanical process of mastication, or chewing, during the first step in digestion.
In a study, by then Doctoral candidate Aaron Olsen, he explains how the skeletal structure of a largemouth bass mouth aids in suction feeding. Through the rapid opening of the mouth structure a force is created that "sucks" prey into the fishes mouth.
That can occur as well in striped bass when targeting floor- based foods like crustaceans, crabs, lobsters, mantic shrimp, sand eels, eels, and mole crabs, as well as fishy foods like small white bait to menhaden, mackerel, squids, and all things with fins and tails.
You may have also seen striped bass "rafting" or "raft feeding" when they are in big schools and have baits, like bay anchovies or silversides, up near the surface and are swimming with their mouths open catching baits just by the nature of swimming through and catching them in their mouths. Below is a photo from Montauk guide Jim Levison.
It would be fair to say that it is during that suction feeding where striped bass injest rocks, probably as by-catch. Marinkovic's bass had a four ounce rock inside its stomach, boy that woulda hurt on the way out.
And then the question is how do striped bass prepare for and weather big weather. Striped bass are powerful swimmers, and use that body shape and strong caudal fin to ambush prey in a quick propulsion motion forward, as a weapon by tail slapping and stunning prey, to turn quickly when eating prey off the bottom, and to navigate in depressions and troughs when the waters above are turbulent.
I shot this video on October 29, 2011 when I ventured out to fish a nor-easter. Needless to say I wasn't alone as then fellow members of the Asbury Park Fishing Club had beaten me to The Flume. Fly fishing in this? Yes. Easy. No. But when there's a lot of bait and it's all turned around and confused the bass will put the feed bags on. Pockets are the place to be, and 8th Avenue was one of the best.
So do striped bass, or other fishes, injest rocks before an upcoming storm to swim straight, or to be able to hold bottom? Well, it seems to be an old wives, or Captain's tale. In a study in 2007 that was published in Science Daily, "Fish Help Geologists by Gathering Stones from Ocean Floor", researchers looked to deep water fishes to determine the type of geology
that existed on the ocean floor. They turned to the Antarctic toothfish, aka the Antarctic cod for help. They found that larger tooth fish, greater than three feet in length, held stones up to one pound in size. While they couldn't determine why the fish held stones, they speculated it was for digestion and or ballast.
So these days we don't see big fish dangling from the scales of the local marinas after the boats come in. We do still see big fish held incorrectly, like vertically where all their guts get squeezed down and can't perfuse, for the big weigh in on the Boga Grip. But remember, that big
fish that came in at 50.14 pounds may have a small bucket of 1/4" clean in it's intestines.
After the storm it'll be game on for the continued first push of big fish. It'll be fish out of water pics, flopping on the deck, held north to south, bleeding from the gills, treble hooks jammed in mouths and scales and gill plates, oh yeah and eyes, why would they need them, all to have claimed to, "Swam Away Strong". The ratio will be 500:2, boat to shore, and 2000:2, spin to fly. But don't get frustrated or feel like a loser because you're not catching, soon the internet and your buddy's cell phone will tell you when the fish hit the beach.
You'll then be able to join the fray and catch those rock eating rockfish. My prediction after the blow....slow. Then one day, in about seven (October 21st New Moon), on a good tide ( 8 and 8 high), with the temps dropping (50's at night), the bait will move and there will be fish on the beach. I hope the anglers putting their time in get rewarded before the word gets out and fall-blitz chasers show up.
