Late start from Keyport today around 10:20am with Chris aboard. Headed over in the Raritan to buoy 11A. No marks were found so we trolled towards Old Orchard with a stretch 25+ and a shad umbrella rig. Nothing yet so we continued trolling over to Hoffman island off Staten Island.
Still nothing. So we pulled the lines and motored over to the Verrazzanno bridge on the fort Wadsworth side. I got a few readings on the depth finder but had no hits.
we tried the Brooklyn side of the bridge and continued towards Coney Island with no luck.
I pulled the lines again and motored over to the Breezy Point jetty. Many boats were anchored up but I did not see much action. We trolled for awhile with no fish.
Finally we sped across the bay over to Sandy Hook and saw some birds working the area. We started hitting the Striper's with the Shad umbrella rig and had plenty of action on the depth finder. I swapped out the stretch 25+ on the second pole for a new Tsunami 9" shad. We had a hard hit on it and had a big Striper next to the boat then it got off. I examined the 9" Tsunami shad and noticed the rear hook broke off at the through wire between the front and rear hook
.This should not happen with a Striper and was a defective Lure.
By the end off the day we landed 13 Striper's and two big bluefish all on shads. One Striper was a keeper and the rest were 24" to 27". It turned out to be a very nice day out on the water.
