....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.
