Well, what can I say. It was a beautiful fall/winter morning for striper fishing. It was cold. You got wet. There were fish around. I'll start with the story of the monster bass in the picture above. About midway through my fishing morning I jumped up on the groin and found found Ed, who was fishing the rocks for the first time, into a steady pic of shorts he was catching on a SP Minnow. He was nice enough to invite me out next to him since he was on the fish. I stayed put in the pocket figuring I would just get mine closer to the beach. I saw him go tight and figured he had a nice fish on. I turned away to fish until he yelled down asking for some help in landing in. As I got closer I saw he in fact had a REAL good fish on so I took his rod as he climbed down to land it. It taped out at over 36 inches and probably over 20 pounds. I laughed when he said he always fishes the beach and that, " I never fished the jetties before, this is great!". His morning was like a DH (designated hitter) coming into his first game and hitting a game winning grand slam in the bottom of the 9th inning.
Now back to reality, or my reality. Started in the dark on the incoming tide where I caught a fish on a black Snake Fly on one of my first casts. As light arrived I was joined by fly rodder Steve who also caught a fish on the rocks. As anglers walked the beach there was a steady pick of short bass which seemed to really like plugs as of late. I switched over to the orange Hollow Fleye and had another bass before calling it a morning. Or so I thought.
On my way home I swung by a spot that always holds, well, anglers, but no one was out. There was a NW wind like 15-20 with a NE swell which made casting and fishing the north side of the groin a little tricky. I fished down and back and picked up four bass the best being 24 inches.
Although Ed was the grand champion this morning it was nice to be out in the wind and the cold and catch a couple of fish and help another angler out.
