I set my alarm for 515 but was up at 410am and in the local WaWa shortly thereafter. Funny thing how when you have to go to work its easy to hit the snooze button and just roll over. But when its a fishing day you wake right up and couldn't go go back to sleep if you tried.
All the way to the beach I was checking out the trees and the flags to see if the blow had started up yet. Low tide was at 330 and I knew it would eventually be big and sporty so the earlier I got there the better. Things looked good, well sort of. I was sickened to see the amount of garbage up on the beach scarp and floating on the north side pockets. I don't know if cruise ships dump their garbage at sea or if we're just a bunch of litterbugs and this is the damage from it.
I had to size up the beach and where the water was and where the wind was coming from. I settled into a spot that looked real fishy and after having my stripping basket stripped to my knees from a waist high breaking wave I hooked up. Really? All that work for the smallest striper of the year. Always glad to see the small ones, but on a day like this? I eventually found a groin that was water and wind friendly and worked the south side for awhile connecting on the fish on the top of the
page and two others. It was definitely a bucktail jig type of day and I'm sure a few good ones would have been had for a spin fisher. I could have used the H2 11wt today as the 10wt Clearwater, a rod I have come to really like, just is a little slow and didn't have the punch for the 350 gr line to fish on the north side or due east. I don't know how long it'll take for the water to be too off color or big and unfishable and it might be a few days before it gets good.
