I know people don't generally carer about my life and don't stick around here to read about non-fishing things but, for me, and maybe my kids when I'm done, it'll be a good read about my, on their lives, mixed in with a little fishing. This blog has been running for 14 years, I'm 55 years old, so 25% of my life has been lived while this blog has been going. So here's goes a mixed day of fishing and stuff.
You know I hate to take that drive of shame to the beach unless I have a reason to go. Well today was my son Sean's 25th birthday. I wanted to see him in person and did that while he was at work at Rook in the Little Silver train station. That would be after some fishing of course. So I told Leif I was going and we met down there around 530 ish. It was a stiff if not honking at times NE wind with about two hours left on the flood tide. It was a day where line management would be important. So on my second cast I go back and my fingers lose the line and it's all in the rocks (above). I thought just about
parting it and retying but I managed to get it free. Two minutes later I looked up and Leif was tight. He's been fishing for about a week and is having the same result each time, one quick early fish and that's it.
I jumped down in between the rocks to unhook and release the fish. These fish are probably resident fish in the 24-28 inch range and not the migrating Chesapeake and Delaware fish. Those ones are the 20 and 30 pounders anglers get while soaking clams or bunker on the beach while hanging in a chair.
Leif split for work and I had some time to kill so I stayed as the last hour of the tide really pushed in almost making it unfishable is not just unfun. You could make a cast between the swell and crashing waves but eventually you say, "Is that really a productive cast?". Just because you get one out there doesn't mean you're in any type of productive zone. I then thought "where could fishing be good?".
I drove north and first stopped at Pullman Avenue. You know Frankie Pallone's buddies neighborhood. He had to make sure they had sand for the upcoming season so he went had cahooted with the NJ DEP and the ACOE and had sand pumped from Roosevelt Ave in Deal to Lake Takanassee in Long Branch.
The only thing a straight run beach like the one they created is good for in a mullet or peanut run in the fall. The bait comes down the beach, albeit quickly, and the striped bass follow. I would love to see guys coming down the stairs and having to run to catch the blitz and then have to run chasing it south.
My final destination was Sandy Hook and and God bless the person who thought dropping a portable toilet at Lot M was a good idea. My hope was to find some good water out of the wind. It was ENE and the Bug Light should have been what I was looking for. It was, it's just no one was home. Most of the water had drained but there was still good current on the dropping tide. A guy throwing metal a mile
was having fun with some cocktail blues that he kicked released back into the water. It was then off for the birthday wishes before taking the drive of shame home. When I got to Trenton I liked what I saw, so, why not run some freshwater through my waders before I get on with a still to come busy day.
The Delaware is down, water temps holding, it's gin clear, and the tide is just a lazy in and out. Some small bait here and there and, for me, not a striped bass to show in, I don't even know how long. So that is it for fishing. After a quick shower it was time for part three of the day. I had to drop Lauren off at The Cure Center for her graduation from Mercer County Community College. She finished up in two years and has her AAS in Automotive Technology. So proud of her. Now fix my trucks a/c!
I couldn't stay and see her walk because it was the Essex County College's Nursing Pinning Ceremony at the same time. It really is a special night an incredible accomplishment for these women, and three men!. All those "I won't cry" tough girls had to fight back tears as they and their families celebrated their accomplishments. One funny thing from the event was the slide show. A few weeks
before they had asked me if I had any photographs from my pinning ceremony, held in the same venue in 1996. I looked and gave and that was it. But two nights ago a student texted me and insisted I must have something to give them. So I tore through the old photo boxes and found the below pictures.
That's me 27 years ago getting pinned by my first wife. The woman to the right is now Dr Gale Gage, one of my instructors at the time and now the Dean of Nursing and my boss. She's still there. The kids couldn't understand why I didn't have any good photos. I explained to them that we all didn't have good cameras back in the day, and if we did, you really needed to have skills to take a good picture of various shades of people in a darker space and from a distance. These were most likely taken with a disposable camera or one of those disc cameras. I also shared with them about video and that we didn't have iPhone's to shoot and then post up to Instagram and Tic Tok. Just look at the camcorder in the below image, the guy on the left has the shoulder mount JVC working. I remember walking around Disney World with one of them, along with all of the other Dad's. Boy, time flies by.
