Well it's striper season 2024 but to be honest it just doesn't feel like it. It's probably due to a combination of work stuff, which is 7 days a week, poor conditions, and a later start on the fishes part. I'm trying to find some mo-jo to get me going and it's coming at a snails pace for me. Usually this time of year it's watching and waiting for conditions to line up for things to kick off which is usually a tap dance around big rain and big water. This year the river its boring. It's flat. It's droughty. And it doesn't look fishy.
Right now the river is at 8,300 cfs which is summer flow levels. I wonder how it affects migratory fish that move up the rivers to spawn. I know they have to get there and do their thing but it has to affect when and how they move. When the water's big you can kind of count on fish being in places similar to trout when the waters up. With flows down and a minimal "movement" when there is a tide it's just hard to picture fish strategizing and taking shots to move north. Not only does that affect the fish but it changes how and when you fish for them. For me, picking the deepest holes and the spots behind the rocks when it's that low isn't challenging and is kind of like fishing in a bathtub. They want to go up but when the waters low they stop and stage, and can be easy pickings if they are interested in eating or a reaction swipe because they are annoyed that you're bothering them.
The wait for those 50 degree water temps is over. While it's not 50's across the board we're now over the hump and things should be more consistent temperature wise in both the bays and rivers. But that doesn't always mean it's good. My friend has been down on the Chesapeake and has been struggling to find striped bass even when there's bait and good water temps. Now the Chesapeake is big, and the fish, at least this year, seem to be more mid-bay and east.
The problem, more for the rivers than the bays, is the water temps and the water levels. While 50 is great, we're only a few warm and sunny days away from the temps skyrocketing into the 60's. Yes, 60 is a good number, especially if you think that's around when spawning gets going, but the quick jump doesn't do anything good. High temps mean low oxygen and just nasty water. Cool, fresh, oxygenated water does the body good. High temps mean stress, and that run alone is taxing on the fish, and can affect spawning.
I won't get into fishing for pre-spawn bass, like pros and cons, but what I will say is anglers should take all precautions when targeting, hooking, fighting, landing, and releasing striped bass. Single barbless hooks is a good start. Maybe fishing within a certain area, meaning casing distance, can help when and if you hook a fish. A 40 pound fish hooked 400 feet away, and down current, is a recipe for disaster. Most times, after the hooks and first run, the fish peter out and what you're doing is fighting the current, basically dragging the fish up current until it comes to hand. That's how fish lose eyes, lips, gill plates and rakers, their esophagus, and their lives. You may not take them home but they ain't surviving. Ok, that rants done. If you're catching and releasing, be the best sportsman and woman you can be.
I've been out here and there and hit it a few good times this weekend. Again, the river isn't much to look at. What it is is just time airing out some casts with low to no expectations. Yesterday marked March's new moon which can be a sleeper compared to a full. April 13th marks the "Pink Moon" which is one I always look forward to. While I haven't found any striped bass the smallmouth are out to play. There's been some swings and misses and some that came to hand. I got to tell you, I'm not much for fish other than striped bass. Not smallmouths, largemouths, bluefish, or albies. But that's just me.
I've done the O-dark thirty thing and I have to say it was a push and grind to drag myself out of bed. But I did it and once I got going the juices started to flow. In going I got the opportunity to find my gear, get my waders on and off, and try and rekindle the relationship between my muscles and my casts. It's been three plus months since my joints rotated that way so it has been good for that.
It's also given me the chance to find my walking and climbing mo-jo again. Long gone are the days of just rock hopping, now each step is carefully calculated with staff in hand. I do that because I know one false move could be a slip and fall which could wreck me and my now aging- college-Professor-body. To sat my core is strong would be a joke. Outside of having a spine I don't think there's much there these days.
And in kind of sad news a friend sent me the below picture yesterday. It's the house at 116 Spier Avenue in Allenhurst. It once was the Walker household. I spent many a day over there stopping in before or after a trip to the beach. If it was after then it included having coffee
with some pastries from Craving's or lunch from Brennan's. Of course Al and I would hold striped bass court while Evelyn just shook her head at us. I don't think she ever got the striped bass thing, probably because Al was obsessed and drove her nuts about it for over 60 years.
Al and Evelyn passed in July of 2022. The house in Allenhurst was built in 1964 and they lived in and around town for over 50 years. In 2019 the home was sold for $3,000,000 which was way above the price per square foot at that time, according to the Asbury Park Press. At $3 million the house went for $1,087 dollars per square foot, far above the $445 per square foot for other homes in the town.
Soon after the purchase the new owners proposed a plan to the town of Allenhurst Planning Board. it called for demolition of the existing home and the construction of two single family
homes. In 2021 the plans were approved but the project never went anywhere. In 2024 revisions were made which included a single family home with pool and pool house. That got some of
the neighbors up in arms but eventually it was approved and and this week the house was demolished. It's not surprising as that has been common in and around the Jersey Shore for the last two decades. Older homes that were laid out and served people differently than the ones constructed today. What's sad is how the face of the towns have morphed into something too large, too extravagant, and too new. But it is what it is.
The above picture was taken during my last visit with Al and Evelyn before they sold and moved to North Carolina a few years before their deaths, which occurred within 24 hours of each other. Since then when I left the beach I always turned onto Spier off of Ocean Avenue and looked left at the house as I drove by. Things come and go, people, houses, but what can't be taken away are the warm and fond memories that are cemented into our hearts and minds. I am sure the Walker kids fondly remember growing up in that house and no matter what stands at that address the memories can't be erased.