If it's not a wrap for 2023 then its at least Quit #1. Usually there's three quits each end of the year for me. I have to say today was a long day. I ventured below the border into Ocean County not because I was chasing the ridiculous bites they had this past weekend, well, actually because I was chasing the ridiculous bites from this weekend. Well not really. I had sold these two vintage plug bags on Facebook
Marketplace to a guy who worked in Brick so I took the ride to deliver figuring I would fish down that way. Yes, they did have a stupid bite on Saturday and Sunday in some parts on the barrier island. After making the deal and exchanging bags for cash I headed east. My plan was to stop at the first water I could find, fish it, and not leave until I caught a fish there. I would then go to another spot and do the same, not moving until one was to hand at each spot. Okay, well that plan sucked, and here's why.
So they had different winds this weekend. On Sunday it went south just before the rain came down. It was also the full moon. By morning the swell, well swells, kicked in, bringing with them a south to north sweep and off colored water. Mmm....and the real hard west helped clear the place of water pretty quickly. Add them up and it wasn't Day # 3 of the post-Thanksgiving Day "great" fishing. While I was at the Giants game the Two-Joe's were out and had over 40 fish between them. That was yesterday.
So my first spot looked great on the way down. One guy fishing and one guy leaving. The guy headfing out got three on a heavy rubber shad. That was encouraging. As I made my way down I could hear the thunderous roar as the waves hit the bar and then the beach. I just figured I would find that bowl and time the waves and cast a sinking line and pick up where the shad guy left off. Let's just say fishing this morning, well at least fly fishing, could have been described as dangerous, and that's about two hours into the ebb tide. My casts took most of my line to get to the water and then a little left over to fish the first 15 feet, which really wasn't going to hold fish.
I had a two-fly set up going to either get them on a baitfish or a sand eel, whatever they preferred. The problem was with the long casts to get anywhere near the fishy water and a hard sweep most of my retrieves came from my north and behind me. That wasn't fun. At all. I waited it out as the water
receded a bit and I would play hopscotch with the waves but every now and then one would come in hot and turn my body angle to the right. If you were stupid you could have got jammed up out there. With time the sweep lessened a bit and I was able to, at least think, I was in some kind of zone. The only
hits I thought I was getting was when a big wave would take my line and flies and crash them into the sand. While it was fishy looking in close, the Hawaii-Five-0 waves were riding over the bar in the distance and often make their way to the beach scarp. After about 90 minutes, and without a bird in sight, or anything else, I ditched my catch-one-or-die plan. So I made a move south.
I stopped in at the BuzFly production center where Brad had a bunch of sand eels just waiting to be shipped out to a local tackle shop. I'll say it again, if you need a couple of sweet sand eel flies just look back a blog or two for Brad's contact info. Anyway, we caught up on some stuff, including the clubs
"Tie for Trenton Pie" that is being held at The Shady Rest in Bayville. We also talked about epoxy. I'm using light cured stuff but he went into some detail about how he uses Devcon two-part epoxy
for his sand eel flies. Devcon has to be mixed, applied, and then put on a drying wheel to cure. It can take up to four hours for that so it's not a potion for a quick tie and fly to fish operation. While I enjoyed my time sitting with Brad I knew I would be paying for it as the hard west and moon would no
doubt make for a blow out tide, and it did. I walked down and gave it a go in a few very, very skinny bowls. There just wasn't anyone home. In fact I wondered if this was like last year when Leif and I came on Day # 3, when it was all done after Day # 2. But I walked and walked and found my
first and only bass to take a picture of. I had some plans to meet up with a buddy of mine but he never reached out so I was just going to try a few spots and call it a day. I decided to head into IBSP and see
if I could find some water, maybe some birds, a few fishermen?, it was a slow day all the way around. If I saw a dozen trucks on the beach it was alot. There were guys spread out all around but I mean
s-p-r-e-a-d out. I pulled into the Bathing Beach and figured this was as good as a spot as any. I made my
way down and it looked more promising here than it did more north. I did my thing, half-heartedly, because deep down I knew I was done. And maybe it was done. Maybe the next few days of predicted h WNW would change things up a bit. One of the problems is that moon tide and that hard west, it blows ithe water out quick, so between 10 am and say 3 pm it's dead. And if that swell stays around it's really hard with the fly rod, not to cast, but to get the fly into fishy spots, which, are generally down lower.
It might have been about 145 and I just bailed on this spot. I did look down a few beaches and saw a few trucks and guys but I wasn't going to go just to go. It was just an off day and there was reallu no one around fishing. I guess the cell phone blitz network is really in effect down here as well.
I kept my stuff on and after leaving the park and just made a brief stop near the amusement pier. There was some surfers, more birds just doing bird things then I had seen all day, and a few guys spread out just casting and retrieving. I watched for a bit before walking down the ramp to throw a bunch of casts into the incoming water. By the afternoon the water had cleaned up a bit. But as stood there I
just wasn't feeling it, or seeing it. So I backed out and by a little after 3 pm I was in my truck and heading west on Route 37. I stopped for some nasty McDonald's and put on a podcast to make the drive a little more bearable. While on some country road the podcast went off so I clicked on my phone to get it back on track. When I opened my phone Facebook popped up and to my horror I saw the below post.
That was followed by more posts. It is what it is. Incoming tide. Bait and fish over the bar. I missed it by less than an hour. You know how this goes. I could have sat at the Bathing Beach and waited and
waited that extra 90 minutes for the water to roll in. But even where I was wasn't where it was going off. It's like being at Lot A all day only to have North Beach go. But if I stayed maybe it happened for me, or more likely not. Maybe I should have taken Brad's offer to ride the park beach because... I was wondering where everyone was all day.
That's just the way the cookie crumbles. While yes you can just fish for fishing's sake this time of year you need bait and bass to make an outing successful. Today you needed those variables and some water for them to swim in to get it done. Find the birds, find the bait, and you'll find the bass. And if your phone rings.....that'll help as well.
It looks like the WNW will continue for a few days. The air will be colder. Hopefully that swell sits down a bit. It seems like there are still some bait fish around and it's not just all about sand eels, yet. We'll see if those fish stay around but it seems like Ocean County is where it's at, at least for the moment. Is the fat lady singing? I think so. Remember the fish get smaller as the year comes to an end and the Ocean County crew usually gets the last go at it. Sometimes it lasts, or one day just shuts down. I know, I know, there's still a ton of fish in New York, blah blah blah. I'm going to pass on the micro bass push this year. It'll take good fish on herring to get me out in mid-December.
We'll see if this quit of mine sticks, and if it doesn't how long will it last.