Wow! Where do I begin? I'm exhausted. I'm jaked up, I'm laughing. Alright, I'm stopping right here. The fishing was downright tough! Had some great anglers with me today. T-bone - the kid is on fire these days. SproMeister Jeff aka the silent assasin. Schultz, inquiring minds want to know. He's one of the best technicians on just about any subject.
Wind blowing pretty good at 6:30 leaving Highlands. Made the bend through SH bay and headed to Romers. Dropped hook a couple hundred yards from the light and chummed with the balance of the fleet. Nothing home. Thought it would start to pick up with the incoming topping out at 10:00. Nothing happening! Moved further south in shallower water 10-12. Same story.
By 11:00 winds died down as forecasted. Sun warmed us nicely. Had a few bluefish. Schultz had them dialed in on the Jose Wijebe stick! In the meantime, T-bone began working his magic on light tackle. Putting what looked like nice hook sets into both blues and the striped ones. Two legit Striper pick-ups cranked to the boat and spits. Damn that's the pits. SproMeister Jeff had a tough morning with little action and resorted to a couple cold Rolly rocks. Seemed to settle him and T-bone ok as the slow pick continued. Mostly blues until T-bone boxes the first striper of the day.
It quited down pretty good so we made a third and final move to 22 ft of water off the Hook. Saw Chris G from the Ardent Angler in the area but he pulled anchor after 45 minutes without a touch by anyone in the area. By know it's around 12:30 and the outgoing started to move decently. We were not encouraged by the poor showing so far! Polled the group to see if anyone had commitments. The concensus was stick it out, they got to be around. You wouldn't know it from the scope. We had little to no marks all day. Where these fish were was anyones quess.
Baits out. Chums pumping at reasonable intervals. Clam shells being batted sounded like warm-ups for a Monmouth county softball tournament. The damn fish better turn on....
The forecasters had the wind down to a science. At 2:00 she started to blow again. Then it started. Bluefish, bluefish, bluefish, skate.... Bluefish, skate, striper.... NO rhyme or reason. Every 15-20 minutes, we picked away. Determined to put together a catch. Fish-on. T-bone starts launching into the Striped ones with some regularity. I finally get ahold of one. We see 29, 30, 28 inchers and begin to feel like this day may have been worth the slug fest. A couple shorts (27) make it over the rail just to be returned. At this point, we have 5 in the box and trying to fill out a limit.
Next up... I get a bump that feels like something you experience on a bumper car down on the boardwalk. Holy s... point the rod. Wait one, two, three seconds. Get the right angle on this, keep the line taut runs through my head like a black and white rerun of an old classic. I haul back on a 45 and manage to dig my knees into the padded bolster keeping balance as the rollers keep us pitching and yawing. Jesus... this thing feels like a real load I tell myself. Then the fun begins.... My Tica is goin to get a good work out. The penn 5500 is peeling line on a set drag. Better back it off a hair or loose this fish. The current ripping, a fish that did not like a 9/0 jammed in its lip, and the wind kickin up gave this dog a run for his money. I was not convinced what species I was tangling with until the tell tale sign of my line pitched almost parallel to the surface. At last, the confirmation.... finning. Yea baby... we got a stripe to contend with and contend we did. For the next ten minutes, it was a tug of war. On the Tica it felt like there was a Sumo wrestler on the other end. I was not getting thrown out of the ring this time.
Finally, the fish is within sight and all I could say was "Holy S%@T". Schultz is on the net. I'm trying to coach him on where I want the net. How I want it in the water. When to pull the trigger for fear this one might make the great escape. He knows how to net a fish...What was I thinking? Honestly, just did not want to loose it. This is my personal best. Schultz reaches over the gunwale net in the ready. I'm pulling in the excess line. Give him the green to net... he extends and undershoots the fish. We try again. This time he's stretched out and can only get about 7" of the head into the net. Mother nature has a funny way of operating sometimes. A wave crests as he says "I can't get out any further" and pushes the bass into the net. Phew! The fight is over. This rounds goes to Pilot. 41", 21" girth
Count for the day 11 bass (7 keeps), 15 or so bluefish
So... Leasons learned.
1) Stick to the game plan.
2) Be patient
3) Keep tight lines
And most important
4) Keep good friends.
Thanks T-bone, Schultz, SproMeister Jeff for one helluva memorable day.
Here's a video courtesy of photo extraoordinaire T-bone.
