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My day started at 6:05 or so when my cell phone rang on the nightstand here at my dad's house in Ortley. I clicked the silent button, rolled over, and went back to sleep till about 6:30 when my alarm went off, only to hit the snooze button till 7. Got up, made coffee, looked at my phone. Saw the call was from Capt Gene of Shorecatch, so I checked my voicemail, my jaw dropped, I called him to confirm that it was "going off" -- literally grabbed my first mate and brother in law Anthony out of bed, jumped in the vehicle, and got to the boat. We had family stuff planned today, but that was put on the back burner.
Broke the inlet at 8:25. Ran north, found some bunker, so made bait relatively quickly. Continued north. Saw water exploding, looked like a wide open bluefin bite to my East, went there. Put 2 bunker in the water. In about 2 minutes, both of us were battling bass, BIG bass. It was simply insane. First two fish were in the 25-30# range. Broke off a few, dropped a few, then ran outta bunker. I decided to get sporty, put on a big bottle plug, chucked it out, and no more than 10 seconds after it hit the water, I was on. Bass, maybe 25#.
And so it went... Any bunker that went in the water (dead or alive) was absolutely MAULED by bass in the 20-40# range. I had one fish that left the water for my free-lined bunker, the fish was easily 40# or more, and had her on for a good 10 minutes. Got her close, saw here, she was closer to 50#, but the hook unfortunately pulled (and partially broke/straightened ) Got a bunker back in, minutes later I had another fish, this one getting to the boat, my best ever of 38# (probably 46" or so in length).
Anthony then nailed his best ever, while we watched others all around us laughing like little school girls at these BIG bass blasting bunker out of the water all around us. Anthony's biggest went about 28#.
By 11:30 it slowed down. We got our last fish around that time, which was the smallest fish of the day at around 15#/35", again on a plug.
I had about 10 fish on plugs alone today. Ant fishing live and dead bunker only had at least 15 fish on, landing roughly half to 28#. Together we easily boated over 20 bass, all 20-38#, with 1 exception being that 15# fish at the end.
For the day I got my new personal best bass at 38#, Anthony his best at 38#, and my best ever on a plug of just a shade over 30#. What a day!!! I have NEVER seen anything like what we experienced this morning - it was simply an EPIC!!!
(I will post all pics on my site tomorrow - here at my dad's I can't upload photos - sorry guys)
