Lucky for me I slept right until the alarm woke me up at 345am, they put me on the beach around 5 after a stop at WaWa in Jackson for gas and coffee. It felt good not getting there in the middle of the night and only an hour before light creeped over the horizon.
I fished my way north from my parking spot as the incoming tide started putting water up on the beach. I had about 2 hours till high. On my second set of rocks and an hour into fishing I landed the above fish which was a good fighter. I was hoping his friends hd joined him in the hunt for mullet but after 45 minutes I gave up and headed back to groin #1.
I stopped mid-way and had a nice bass, nothing large, jump my double Snake eye set up. There was nothing on those rocks near the top of the tide so I stated fishing the beach. Once set in a spot that
looked promising I connected on this little guy below who took the top Snake Fly, while the first fish took the trailer. I'm not looking to catch a double header but I think having two flys in the water not only increases your chances but also may create a little more of a disturbance than just a lone fly.
Today was a day I just didn't want to leave and stayed till about 830. The surf was still big and hadn't started draining yet. While up on the rocks I spotted my first mullet this fall and that classic v-shaped wake they leave coming down the beach. I caught a cocktail blue maybe two pounds and then watched as his buddies harassed the mullet, no sign of bass picking up the pieces or getting them by themselves.
We each have our own theories on what the bass have been doing, are doing, and will be doing. We think we know until we realize we don't. So about the mullet. Its thin around my parts, is the mullet run done? I mean done like good and done, not "Oh I saw some mullet the other day". I mean here they come down the beach and there's bass on them, like it used to be. Last year wasn't so good, a few back to back storms shut it down.
What I will swear to is that this past week we had the first good push of good fish on the beach. Fly rodder good is different than a spin or bait guy. 28-32" inch fish are a fly rodder dream. Not too big and not too small. In the bigger water during this week those year class fish showed up. A 30 inch bass is 7 or 8 yers old so these would be the 2012-2013 class. The reason I believe this is because, in my absence, the boys had a blast avoiding not getting killed while catching good bass. Joe's the weeks pool winner with a 35" bass (below) while Lief was all alone and found a corner pocket full of bass
that were on the mullet. He recalls seeing black clouds of fish, bass, not mullet, making their way into the pocket and wash. That outing he landed four keepers to 31 inches (below).
The last two days have been slow on the beaches, and I was lucky to squeak a few out this morning, most likely just our resident fish looking for a meal. Hopefully the next wave of bass will be in soon while the mullet are here. Yes, fall can be great and the fish "stay around" for days, to even weeks, 2011 comes to mind and the sand eels and 2016 with the peanuts. But if theres no bait to hold them, coupled with out shitty redesigned beaches thanks to Frank Pallone and the US Army Corp of Engineers, they will just ride by, and hopefully your fly will just happen to catch one of them.
