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?