11.30.24 Hello winter my old friend....

      I woke up this morning and it was a tad chilly out there at 29 degrees. Um, no, I'm not going, nor are a lot of other fishermen. "Is it over?", is a question we all start to ask ourselves just about this time of year. Yes, there will be fish caught through December, and maybe into January, but the more relevant question we should ask ourselves is, "Am I done?".

     It's always hard to pull the trigger and put the stuff away for the year. It goes from being used to being stacked up in the trunk or in a corner of the backseat just in case we decide to give it one more shot. But really, most of us are shot by now. Thanksgiving has came and went and now it's a short jog until Christmas and the New Year. That means switching out the fall and turkey decorations for the Christmas tree and Santa decorations. It also means the work and family party season is here. Add to that going to watch the tree lighting or an overpriced light show at your local orchard, and there's not much time to donate to fishing. So, let me tell you now, you're pretty much done. 

     For us attending or working at a college it's the last few weeks before the semester ends and soon everyone will be back home for the holidays. There's always a honey-do list that never gets finished and hopefully you've taken care of the outside because I can tell you those roofs are slippery and the leaves are frozen in the gutters and along the foundation of your house. Plus, the town has already come and picked them up from the curb, or they have found a spot in your neighbors yard, even though they blew out every leaf that fell early on their property. Yes, they hate you.

     After a very mild fall Mother Nature is waking up just in time as December rolls in. Those west winds we had are now blowing SSW and will soon be coming from the north with a spattering of west from time to time. 

     If you live close then keeping the fall run alive isn't all that big of a commitment. Keep your stuff in your truck, give the beach a peek from time to time, maybe chase a report, or give it a quick session just because. The water temps are still around 53 degrees and we usually see fish until it drops another ten degrees to around 42. That's when the micro bass that missed the party, and migration, hit the beach. 

     Are there still fish around? Sure. No doubt. There will even be a flurry, or even a blitz, along the beaches as the few fish find the bait pods hugging the beach. Sand eels might even stay and stick which are like striper crack. But let's be honest, it's still is a boat fishery. Those braving the elements on an open

center console or the warmth of the head boats galley will find the marks and the fish. It's a jig time of year as those fish pass you by while hugging the bottom in 30-50 feet of water. There's nothing more fun them casting a fly rod through iced up guides watching the boats tightly packed a mile off the beach. 

     Those with the beach buggy passes will be able to hang in there a touch longer. The last time I had a pass and drove the beach was in 2021. I bought it and used it for one day on

December 7th. Leif and I made the trip down after hearing of three solid days of nice weather and off the charts fishing. The following day we went and it was about 20 degrees, nobody out, with no bait or bass, although Leif braved the elements as I watched and got a little guy. 

     Little guys can be fun on the right day. Lighter rods, smaller flies, unless there's herring around, and can produce double digit fish if you catch it right. But it's not a donate-a-day type fishing driving from The Hook down to the North Jetty in search of them. It's usually a close trip mostly to just fish and clear the mind type of fishing. They way it should be.

     After I wrote this blog early in the morning of November 30th the below image from a post on Grumpy's Tackle Facebook page hit the net at 11 am, about an hour before dead low.  

     That's a real good fish and you can see that the cold hasn't affected participation as you can see the line up of guys over his right shoulder. Just so you know fly rodders, he was throwing an Ava, try and compete with that unless you're walking out to the edge of the bar. 

     I have one more trip in me, before I make the switch like every other fly rodder, from fly fishing to fly tying. Soon social media will erupt with posts of flies tied, both good and bad, with the requisite "That's beautiful" to "I'd eat that", even on those creations that a blind fish wouldn't eat. That's not to say that ugly flies don't catch fish. 

     This morning I spent time more wisely on the dead low tide close to home. With drought like conditions the last month or so I've been scouting and photographing my local waters identifying those rock fields and currents which may be useful to know come the spring. 

     Following the Thanksgiving Day rains we have nearly doubled the rivers volume from 4,000 to 8,000 cfs. The lowest I recorded this fall was 2880 cfs which is extremely low. Knowing the lay of the land is good, but the river in the spring is 50,000 cfs and you're fly fishing the edges it really doesn't help all that much. But when the river drops and the post-spawn fish are eating once again having an edge on the lies can be helpful. I hope your season isn't over and you find them all by yourself one chilly day. 

    

11.29.24 Hope you had a thankful day...

     It's the day after Thanksgiving. Hopefully you and yours had a nice day. If you hosted then you know how much work it is. If you cooked and brought then you know the challenges of cooking in one place and eating in another. If you had to drive a bit then you know that can be a pain during Thanksgiving. 

     We had all six children, well all adults now, in one place for one meal. That included Tara who flew in from Texas with her fiancé Simon to basically eat a meal as they flew back home this morning. Props out to her for making it 100% attendance from the kids. 

     I was able to re-create a photo that I took of the kids that was originally taken in 2016. My parents house is currently on the market and will probably the last year we'll sit and eat in that house. 

      So I asked them to sit in the same seats in 2024 as they did eight years earlier. Yep, ones missing, that would be Ryan, and I felt his absence when I looked through the phone to take the picture. It's the silly seasons and days, like holidays and birthdays, when that hole seems to open up a bit and the pain pulses a little harder. But anyway, cool pic of our kids, who we are proud of and love to spend time with, and when they're all there it can male any day that much more special. 

     It's hard to get everybody together for every holiday. People are pulled in different directions as they do the "rotation" which is making sure everyone gets a shot at having people present in and on and off kind of way. This year my brother was at the in-laws, my sister up in the ADK's going through a big house sell and buy, and my Mom down in Florida with her "peeps" just recently coming off a two week cruise to Panama, at age 78. 

      It will be interesting, and fun, to see where we wind up for the holidays in the coming years. The oldest one have crested or are approaching 30 and one is tying the know next year. So, I'm sure at some point we'll be doing the traveling and supporting as the roles and traditions of the family get reassigned, expanded, and yes maybe even better. And then there's always the possibilities of grandchildren. Wow, that'll be a hoot. 

11.28.24 Happy Thanksgiving...

     Be thankful and grateful. Stay more positive than negative. Thrive in the good times and persevere through the tough ones. That person you pass may be having their worst day while you may be having your best. Do more good then harm. Put others first. Stop and help. Do the right thing. Live each day knowing that it could be your last. Keep your family and real friends close, and focus your energy on the people in your life that truly matter. Don't be envious. Changing the plan is okay. No one else can make you happy or complete. Embrace aging and the transition into new stages of development (Erikson). And lastly, give your self a break and take some credit for all that you've done and continue to do, and be alright with the person you are. 

And of course, go fishing, just not today, the weather went to shit...

11.27.24 If you find the bait...

....then sometimes you just find the bait. I had my usual plan although today I was up against the clock with Thanksgiving preparations on the agenda. My plan was to be down there at 530 an hour and some change into the outgoing. My beat with my asphalt buggy would be from Fletcher Lake to Lake Como.

     When I got to Exit 6 on 195 I almost turned right and headed to Newark. My brain and muscle memory has that routine down and if I didn't snap to I would have had to come up with a different plan if I jumped on the Turnpike. So I continued on. I arrived at the beach with an hour before first light and  went to work with a popper off the end of a groin. 

     From what I could see and hear there wasn't much wave action and if there were fish around you would be able to see them. I changed up to a Hollow Fleye with a sand eel dropper. I worked that from the rocks and the beach without a sniff. I had fished for 45 minutes of fishing and started to lose hope. Maybe it's going off on another beach? So I drove down to the entrance to Spring Lake and took a look. 

     The tide was outgoing, the wind from the west, the ocean like glass, the birds looking, and the bait and bass, well, not showing all that much. Since I had went down to my southern border and found nothing I went and took a peek at the northern edge at Fletcher Lake. I got down to the outflow pipe I set up shop.

     Looking to my north and I could see guys on the beach on the other side of the pier and birds off a bit with splashes here and there in between them. Surely there were fish out there so I exhaled, double checked everything, and just waited. This was going to be a great morning.......

     The bait, medium sized peanut bunker, were on a slow ride heading south. They were in large numbers, stacked from the surface to the sand. Every now and then there would be a spray of peanuts and a fish here and there breaking the surface. But there was way more bait then there were predator fish. As the bait moved so did the guys with rod and reel in hand. 

     It was a peanut on every cast and with about 20 lines in the water I saw two fish caught, both slot sized,  with one heading home for dinner. I followed the bait down the beach but bass in any kind of numbers never showed up. That was my shot for the day and I knew it. 

     I dragged up from there and took a ride south. By then the tide was about an hour away from dead low. I know fish don't always show themselves but it was so flat and clean if there was anything going on you would know it. I stood all alone in Spring Lake just waiting for something that never came. 

     Wanting to catch a fish I headed back north a few groins down from where my morning started. The bait had moved out with the tide and there was a boat or two on them, but the birds weren't around and the only splashes I saw were the plugs from the two guys on the end of the groin and those fishing from the boat. 

     I gave it another shot thinking maybe I could catch a drive by fish but that didn't happen. By near dead low I was getting hungry and my frustration moved me to call it a day. I hit Joe's Bagel & Grill in Belmar and got an everything bagel with lox spread....with a white milk! So my day wasn't all that bad. 

11.27.24 Thought this was very cool...

     If you found yourself drawn to surfing the net and chasing reports while at work and in between fishing outings then you've seen a ton of good and bad fishing pictures. From grown men holding schoolies, to kids holding monster, to breaded bass on the sand, to bloody bass on the deck and in coolers, you've seen them all. But this photo from Peter James caught my eye.

     I don't know the guys, well two guys and a kid, in the photo but it is three generations of anglers posing for a proud photo. From what I have deduced its grandfather, son, and grandson. Pete, Pete, and Brady. Let's say the son is about 50, that puts the old man, respectfully, about 70, and the kid, about 13. If the elder Pete started striped bass fishing about 50 years ago that's somewhere around the 1970's. 

     I wonder in his rolling years he'd ever imagine posing for a photo in 2024 capturing a day when he, his son, and grandson, would be sharing the beach and consistently catching good sized striped bass on the beach on a nice November day. I'm 56 now, and in 14 years I'll be 70. At that time who will joining me in a photo while fishing, fly fishing of course, for striped bass here in New Jersey? Will my kids be in a photo, probably not, as none of them has grabbed onto my passion for fishing. Will it me and the grandkids? Who knows, I may or may not have them. Will I even be in New Jersey? And the big question is, "Will I even be here on earth?".

     I have seen my old friends come and go with most of them continuing to fish into their 70's, 80's and 90's. While they say 70 is the new 50, a 70 year old body is still a body that has worked and ran hard for most of it's life. It's tired. But we continue to push past the aches and moans and groans to get out there one more time. Today I will fish with Leif, who just crested 60, and the two Trenton Joe's, in their mid 70's, who will be out there patrolling the beaches of IBSP looking for signs of bait and bass to stop at and give it a few casts.

     I give respect and props to the eldest Pete in the photo. Good on you for exposing your son and grandson to the passion of fishing. Hopefully, your work will get passed on down your bloodline and photos like this will tell your families tory of good times, good fish, and good memories. 

11.26.24 It's another Jersey Thanksgiving week striper fest...

     Regardless of what you've done this 2024 Fall Run the table has been set once again for a Thanksgiving week of really good striped bass fishing. It's becoming a thing since it's been happening every year now for some years. Like clockwork, outside of the storms, it's been a slow September, a building October, and then a real good November.  

    Some fish early, then big fish, then a size down, then, and what we see now are a mix of under slot, through the slot, and overs, with some big fish in the mix. As far as bait, early mullet, then bunker, then sand eels, and now it's a mix of sand lances with peanuts and adults in the mix. Your fly wallet these days should include a variety of flies to match the hatch, from sand eels, to peanut bunker flies to larger Hollow's to Beast Fleyes. 

     And then it's the question on when and where the striped bass will hit the inshore waters and the beach. Some days it's north, from The Hook down to Long Branch with a spattering around those mid-Monmouth beaches, to Ocean County, where Bech buggy access from Mantoloking to the North Jetty in the park can see a push. For those driving the asphalt it can be hours of driving looking for those shots. 

     I don't know what it is about the areas the Captree fleets fish in but they have been on the bass now for over a month. It's been good for the boat and beach anglers. In between Fire Island and Island Beach State Park there's a lot of water, 85 miles of it, and the boats have seen great numbers of fish along Queens, Brooklyn, and in and around the Lower New York and Raritan Bays. 

     When the boats and shore anglers are on them it's easy to find the fish. Boats concentrated in 60 + feet of water around the EEZ line and even up on the beach and trucks lined up on the sand along those towns that have become ambush spots for the bass on the bait. And it's that time of year where we see the largest number of fish legally harvested for the table. Slots aren't hard to come by this week as it had been when it was all big fish and now it's NJ Bonus Tag bonanza as 24-28" hit the decks, the sand, and the coolers. No matter what you or I think, between food fare and bragging rights, these fish are being manhandled and mishandled which leads to greater mortality. 

The question I have this morning, after finding nothing on the internet, is who won the $20,000 in the 2024 NJ SAT Fest which was held on Sunday? That's a lot of cash. I am sure there were plenty of entries in the 28-31 inch range and someone is waiting for that bag of money. It's the largest shore based tournament in the United States and I haven't heard a word from any participants or organizers. Why is it so secret? 

11.25.24 How about some humble pie with that Thanksgiving turkey....

     Recently I was re-listening to Bob Clouser on Episode 71 of Andy Mill's "Millhouse" podcast. He talks of conversations he had with Lefty Kreh about newer people in the business. During one conversation he, Kreh, and Popovics were talking about young blood in the business, and Kreh stated, "Bobby, they don't know what they don't know". 

11.24.24 I'm surprised we haven't broken the World Record yet...

      It was in 2011 when Greg Myerson (above) caught the current World Record striped bass while drifting a live eel off the Connecticut Coast. That fish weighed 81.88 pounds and had a 54 inch girth. Prior to that New Jersey's own Al McReynold's (below) caught a 78.8 pound striped bass in 1978 while fishing off a groin in Atlantic City. 

     There have been several 70-pound striped bass that have been caught from New York and into New England. The same year Myerson caught the 81pounder Peter Vican (below) caught a 77.4 pound bass off of Rhode Island. That fish just squeaked past his personal

best of 76.14 he caught a few years before. These fish are all enormous and if you have ever been lucky enough to land a 40 or a 50 then just image another thirty pounds added to that fish.  

    If I had to bet Jersey's own Chuck "Tyman" Manny would be in contention for breaking Myerson's record. He fishes for giants both in New Jersey and down off of Virginia. I am sure he's broken the 60 pound mark using his live eel techniques. 

     I am surprised the record still stands because when the records were set and or broken over the years there wasn't much in the way of strict size or slot limits. There were one under and one overs, then a max size limit, and now just a three inch slot. While catch and release mortality and commercial fishing (which allows for bigger fish to be harvested) have killed off a lot of bass, these big females, or cows as they call them, have been allowed to grow and flourish, kinda, to keep the species going. The big girls are part of what they call the SSB, or Spawning Striped Bass, biomass. 

     Big striped bass, which I would say in todays standards are better than 40 pounds, aren't all that much of a unicorn as they once were. Even fly anglers and surfcasters can get shots at these big fish when they are up or in. While we may think they are giants from the deep only eating eels and bait they can be caught eating what all of their friends are eating, from bunker to herring, to even sand eels. 

     One of the big differences in big fish is the difference between pre and post spawn bass. Males are always smaller and some say they max out about 34 inches. The big girls can grow upward of 50 inches. Those big fish mentioned above, including Myerson's, taped out just below 55 inches. If you add the egg weight to a striped bass it can really pull down on the Boga (please don't use a vertical scale). Big 

Roanoke River unicorn

spawning females can produce about 80,000 eggs per pound of body weight, and the big girls can produce about 4 million per spawning year. A pre-spawn cow can add up to 10 pounds of eggs added to her size which can be 40 or 50 pounds, adding up to 25% to her rack. Some believe you shouldn't target or even be allowed to fish in waters where pre-spawn staging or spawning occurs.

     With the new slot in effect since last year what do you do if you catch the World Record 89 pound striped bass? Because remember, you can't keep it. Most likely that fish is going to die anyway because let's be real the amount of lactic acid build up after a long fight will surely be too much metabolically for it to survive. Those fish aren't in the best of shape to begin with. Imagine wrestling with your 8-months pregnant wife? Will she be on top of her wrestling game? 

     The best you can do is keep it in the water, get some measurements, remember length x width, and some good pics, and send her on her way. Will the IGFA count it? Well they should. The last thing they could or should require is a weight on a vertical scale. Recently Captain Chris Buchta broke out a 

cradle to hold big fish to weight them. They use these across the pond for monster carp. So if you are in the big game striped bass hunt, or find yourself catching a lot of super big bass, this might be a way to get solid weights, not Jersey 50 estimates, and even a better way to release them back in the water rather then the old albie head first toss back into the drink. 

The new World Record is coming soon.