Tossed and turned for about five minutes before deciding it was just time to go. Time is better spent early spring fly fishing for stripers than sleeping, no matter what time it is. Today my son and his mom are hitting our last college acceptance day visit at Rutgers-Camden so I had a few hours before we head out at 730. Beautiful night with a NW wind at 5-10 and air temps near 60. Had the moon up so it would have been easy to spot any bait or bass around making any kind of disturbance on the water. Worked a small black Montauk Monster around for a while alternating swimming it with a wake and
subsurface. I should have soaked it in clam or bloodworm juice. I wasn't discouraged because although there has been a good bay bite on bait, I don't know if the bass have made there way to the rivers yet, and they aren't looking up just yet. As always you'll never know if you don't go, and if you wait for the reports there's a chance you would have already missed any bite happening that day.
On a side note......lots of private and charter boats are making their way out this weekend for their first shot at the bass......I feel sorry for those fish. The water temps have spiked are in the 50s and 60's, it happened almost overnight. Most boats will be anchored up chumming and clamming and putting a beating on the fish on the same numbers everyday. For a few weeks the bass have been making their way into the bay staging and rooting around for food as they await the arrival of the river herring and bunker before making their way up the Hudson to spawn. Also, down south steady reports of the Delaware strain are being caught on their way up to spawn. I wish there was some better fish management this time of the year, maybe reducing the number of fish that can be harvested with a cap of fish no bigger than 32" allowed, just for the early spring. We can have different size limits and bag numbers for different times of the year.
SO HERE'S A WARNING....if you don't like seeing tons of pictures of big dead pre spawn bass then stay off the internet till Tuesday.