Left the dock 8 am with Chris aka Leckbass to find some fish. Pretty chilly morning. Brought all the gear with us. From light tackle to sharking rods. Windy as hell to say the least. The whole ride out to the inlet we took a beating and got wet. Got to the inlet and it was pretty calm but on the other side was a heavy chop and a nasty winds. The birds were going insane on the bait with 3-6 pound blues chewing them up. A few times we saw a school of blues go air born on a school of bait fish. Ended up using the medium light tackle and hammered them. We def worked for them though. Not every cast. More like every third once we figured out the right drift.
It was nice to have the Coast Guard on one side of us and Sea Tow on the other. There were a few waves that we dropped for cover so we didnt get thrown over. One of the times I was hooked up and fighting a blue and I ended up on my back on the floor of the boat. ( I did land that fish ) We put about 20 blues in the boat and headed back to the Manahawkin Bridge to try for some weakies.
By then the day was beautiful. Wind laid down a bit and the sun was out.
We anchored up and used high-low rigs with mixed baits from clam and sheddar crab to fresh spot filet. Also small bucktails with gulp blood worms. Fished about two hours and put one nice weakie in the boat. A bunch of small sea bass, oyster crackers, tog and baby blues. NO blowfish this time.
By the end of the day my knee caps and right side of my stomach were bruised up! Well worth it though.
Be in the woods next week. Hopefully the stripers will show up more and more over the next few weeks so when I get back down we can put a few in the boat.
James.
