I had to run down to Monmouth County, so, why not. Three hours into the outgoing, WSW wind at 12, air temps above 50 degrees, word that some fish are still around, although early and later I hear are better times.
I'm glad I got there when I did because that swell, and shorebreak, well, wasn't swell for this angler, but the surfers were out in force and had a good time. Any earlier and I surely would have been knocked over.
The thing that stood out to me as I walked and casted were the drastic changes to the beach after last weeks big blow. That's part of the reason why the surfers were so happy. Tons of sand has been pulled off the beaches and deposited onto sand bars just off the tips of the groins. I spoke with one surfer who gave me the low down on sand bars, waves, and surfing. There were tons of them out from Deal down to Belmar.
As far as fishing. No one home for me although there are fish still being caught from Sandy Hook down to ISBP, and surprisingly way south down to Cape May. You have to work and read the water and the beaches to find places that may hold fish. Spin fisherman have the added advantage of being able to cast Ava's or rubber sand eels about 300 feet which puts them over the sand bars the surfers are floating over. On the beach the troughs are gone, filled in by the sand as the beaches become lower and the waves travel up the beach scarps higher. You will see even more drastic changes by March. When beaches are replenished, sorry "nourished", they are higher as the pumped sand is deposited, and the waves have to cut into them and pull sand out, and that takes time, along with Mother Nature. Now they are nearly flat and the waves roll in and way up the beach and the sand gets pulled out. Creating a gently sloping, and boring, beach to fish. Basically the beach scarps are gone, at least where I was.
What is a beach scarp? What is a fore-shore? A berm? Trough? Sandbar? Most of us know these terms or have heard of them. But some of us, like myself, often use words that we don't know the correct meaning of. So beach scarp? I use it all the time. I may come off like I know what I'm talking about. So I did research and dug it to see if I was using the corrects words to discuss the location I was talking about. If you would like to learn more I would direct you to an article titled, "Morphodynamic Evolution of Post-Nourished Beach Scarps in Low Energy to Micro-Tidal Environment". That would be
found in The Journal of Marine Science and Engineering. All you'd have to do is plug is some numbers from you're local beach into the formulas above and then you'll know. Ok, that article was way above my intelligence level. So I looked something more fitting for my K.I.S.S. (Keep it simple stupid) mental capacity of understanding.
When we talk about reading the water we look for things like sand bars, cuts, bowls and troughs. You can read structure below the water by watching how the water travels over, around and through those subsurface structures. Scouting out locations on low tides can be a helpful way to learn more about the water you fish. But what about from the low to high tide levels on the beach, that's where beach scarps come in.
When they talk about beach scarps a lot of the literature talks about it in regards to beach erosion, and pzrticlulary on "nourished beaches", because that is where you see the quickest and greatest changes to the beach landscape. A beach scarp;
In a perfect fly fishing world a beach scarp would run down the beach in a vertical angle down into a trough, which would then lead into bowls and then into a cut out in between sand bars. (When you walk the beach the higher you are the deeper the water is in front of you.) That creates places for baitfish and predators to lie in wait as food moves through, around and along those structures with the current, or, move themselves with the current to root around for food or escape on a dropping tide. The waters you
fish, at least those with tides and current should look like a highway map. Many ways to get to and from one place to another. For bass, that's to come in and chew and screw. Waves breaking on the beach disorient bait or dislodge them from beach scarp, things such as crabs, sand eels, and clams. I find places like Island Beach State Park (above) to have the best, well consistent, beach structure. And that is primarily due to the fact that is controlled by Mother Nature, and not man, well men, like Frank Pallone and the Army Corp of Engineers. Okay, I won't start.
Beach erosion is a normal occurrence. Sand comes and goes. Sand shoals up and pockets are formed depending on the strength of the tides, wind, weather, and time of year. Our normal littoral current from south to north during the summer with a prevailing south wind shoals up inlets and groins on the south side, creating pockets on the north sides. In the fall when the wind switches to the north and northwest sand movement is reversed.
Below is a photo of the beach scarp following some beach nourishment. You can see how the ebb and flow of the tides cuts into the "new" beach. At some elevations the water travels up further, in
others it hits a wall, a berm, of sand creating a mini-cliff. And the below photo shows how severe those beach scarps can become during a prolonged period of big weather, tides, or moon phases. While these
examples may be severe, well not really, they can help illustrate where a beach berm is. In the below illustration it shows beach berms. A beach berm is the horizontal ledge that is formed along the beach
that occurs during high tides. It can be generally found when you hit the beach and see that line of flotsam, garbage, and fishing lures that get deposited as the tidal waters run up the beach scarp. In a normal run of a few days outside of weather or a moon tide that level, and formation of a beach berm, remains generally consistent.
So to get out of that wormhole. Water comes into the beach during a tide, which is the vertical rising and lowering of water. That water energy can be increased by waves affected by moon phases, wind, weather and the structures it moves over, around, and alongside. But it comes over the bar, into a trough, up the beach scarp, loses force at the beach berm (where it leaves that $60 plug), and then retreats down the scarp, into the trough, hits the bowls, sweeps along the groins, back over the bars, or through the cuts and back into the ocean.
Now, last thing. Have you ever been throwing flies when the bigger waves are rolling in and the wave that is exiting the beach hits the one that is coming into you, and possibly crashing into your stripping basket? Well there's names for them as well. If the crest of both waves hit each other, that is called constructive interference. If the crest of one hits the trough of another wave that's called destructive interference. If it's total chaos, like a washing machine, that's mixed interference. Bet you didn't know that, well either did I until I looked it up. I can thank Roger Williams University Introduction to Oceanography for that gem.
Now below is Roseld. You can see how far up the beach the water comes. You can also see how far out the sand goes. We actually lost rocks during and after the storm. Not lost like they're gone, but the sand has been washed out and has shoaled up both sides. I saw that on the three groins I fished.
Along side them the sand created a gently sloping beach, which tells you it just goes out gradually into the ocean. You can look at the groin height to see how much sand has been lost. Tall groins without pockets really aren't all that fun or productive to fish. Fish don't like having their bellies rub along the sand and I couldn't find any kind of trough that might hold a fish.
A quick glance at the condos on Roseld had me thinking, well dreaming of good times. I can see the pocket that used to be there, the metal bulkhead that protected the property, and the contour of the rocks
that made their way north back to the Deal Casino. Soon those buried wooden pilings will start to show themselves, that's unless Frankie boy gets another 35 million dollars to pump Deal. And we all know he has friends there that he has to keep happy. Beach season is only six months away.
As I walked I found that Christmas tree someone had stuck in the sand. Many of the shell ornaments are gone including the one I made for Ryan. Maybe it was returned to the sea during the storms and big tides we have had as of late. I was actually going to grab it for my own tree at home.
I was going to make a left on the beach and call it a day but it was too nice to leave. I had zero confidence I was going to catch but I stayed anyway. It was hard to get to fishy water past the breakers that came in sets every 8 seconds. It was walk down and high tail it up before they hit. I jumped up on
the rocks one last time for 2023. Surely, this was it for me. There were some birds working pretty good out a ways and two party boats were out there looking and stopping. I could hear the horn hit when it
was time to drop or reel in. They stayed put and worked the waters out in front of Elberon, Deal and Asbury Park. The Golden Eagle had stated on their website that Thursday was to be the last trip for the year but after today they extended it and will make Sunday a wrap. While I stood there casting and basically watching the surfers they were on the bass, as they reported later in the afternoon.
