09.18.24 So much for the Harvest Moon...

     It's a moon I always looked forward to. It's kinda like that August Sturgeon Moon they look froward to out in Montauk and Block Island. Guys and gals plan their fishing outings on that moon because historically good things happen in and around it. Now some will say you never fish on the moon with the best days leading up to and after the new or full. 

     I've kind of complained about it here over the years as I age and become more of a curmudgeon. "Things aren't like they used to be....." yeah yeah, we know. But really it's true. Even during the dog days of summer we would pop up or use crab flys to catch those early morning bass before the crowds and the heat would hit the beach. And then it was a transition into fall when the air and water temps would drop usually after a cold spell mixed with some Indian Summer days. But now it's all or nothing. Winter becomes summer and summer becomes winter. The spring and falls aren't what they used to be. Everything these days, including the weather, is extreme.

     And that can be seen in the striped bass vacation and migration. "Resident" fish, while I am sure they are around, just don't stick like they used to. As I have said before they are changing the rules of engagement. Add some beach replenishment in there and why would you stay? 

     What used to be a fall run is now "Early-winter blitz fishing". There's nothing, then there's a million fish, and then there's nothing. They up and go like a fart in the wind. What used to be the hunt to find the fish when they show has now become more of trying to beat the crowds in an attempt to both find your own fish before the seasonal blitz guys line the beaches like they do up on the Salmon river. 

     Last fall, like the year before, I put my time in and found the crowds and the fish really good on some days. Most outings it was jumping into the hot tub after the seats were already taken. On a few banner days I either got lucky or calculated in my head where they might show and found my own fish, in the end only to be crowded out or frustrated having to not catch the possessed blitz fishermen not paying attention to other people around them or a fly guys backcast. It is what it is, or it was what it was. 

     After a hard days work yesterday, and yes teaching is hard, as it's three, six, or twelve hour shifts on your feet talking for just about the entire time. It's not, like say work like firefighting, but it gets tiring especially if you leave nothing in the tank trying to get students engaged and on board. 

      My body and mind are programmed for the striped bass migration. Something in my brain's wiring and in my body remind me each spring and fall that it's go time, and I have really looked forward to it. So when I got home after a chat with Leif while driving down the New Jersey Turnpike I sat in my old-man recliner and settled in for a Tuesday's dose of Dateline or Beat Bobby Flay which usually puts me to sleep. But then I thought why not go? If you don't go then you won't know. 

     The tides are high for this big moon a little after sunrise and sunset. If I went it would still be "normal" hours and I could go and be tucked into bed by midnight. Unless I worked the third shift as the big water fell it would be another two hour drive, one there and back, to fish for an hour or so. So that's what I did. 

     I got down about an hour after high tide just as the big flood tide started to ebb. In the back the recent run of NE winds didn't really have much of an effect on things and as the water moved so did the bait. I jumped a few spots but really never found what I was looking for, bass in feeding lanes keyed on the bait either struggling to avoid getting sucked out into the ocean or bait that got the memo it was time to go. What bait I did see was small and was fighting the current to remain in the mid-fall bathtub that is now the rivers and bays. 

     Most of my spots call for wading into the water but last night I would have had to wait for hours for that to happen. I don't know if I'm getting old or lost my mo-jo so I just gave myself an A for the effort, mostly fighting the urge to hit the rack early and for taking the drive, over a hard-core effort to find fish. What "fishing" I did do was dragging a tandem of flies through clouds of small bait hoping to get one of the sporadic small bluefish or bass blow-ups to find my offerings. It was more pathetic then fly fishing, 

kind of like those carnival games where you lowered a magnet to catch a fish. But I went and did it. I don't know if it was a good thing or bad. I think the last fish I caught was a hickory shad back on June 13th in Martha's Vineyard. It's been a long while since I put a hard days work of fishing in, and that would have been in late-June down in Hilton Head where I waded in 150 degree weather in alligator infested waters looking for tailing redfish. 

I remember the show "A Year Without a Santa Claus" growing up when I was a kid. I wonder if skipping things for a fall run might energize me a bit and give me a reset, or will something else move in to fill that void. Things are just different, and usually worse off in a way, then the way things used to be. I'm really not looking forward to all the social media posts and the hype of guys catching fish practically beaching themselves chasing bait onto the beach. I think it will just piss me off more than anything. And as I get old things tend to piss me off a lot and it's a struggle to remain pleasant and positive no matter how many times I tell myself to be thankful and grateful.