OK, so I had this appointment for the dentist at around 11:00am today, but then Skolman posts this report about how good the striper fishing was on Wednesday. So now I'm torn between having some old guy with bad breath shove his fat fingers in my mouth
or ditch that and go jigging.
Hmmmm....
Guess what I did. (scroll down for answer)
If you guessed
you are right!
Anyway, we fished mostly up by Monmouth Beach. There were a ton of birds, but it was a slow pick most of the day. Five keepers were boated. The pool winner was 11 lbs. I caught seven stripes. All of mine were shorts up to about 25". But all of the fish were fat! High hook was probably around 15 fish.
I started the morning doing my Butterfly thing, but I couldn't buy a strike. Finally I snagged one of my Butterfly jigs on the bottom and broke it off. It was a knockoff so I wasn't too upset. But, after that I switched over to plain old diamond jigs, Crippled Herrings, and Krocs. I caught most of my fish on the diamond (as did most everyone on the boat).
The butterfly jigs just weren't the ticket today. Most of the fish were being caught within a few feet of the bottom. And so far, for me, in my limited experience using them this season, the Butterflies have been more effective when the fish are either a little bit up in the water column or at least willing to chase a bait up from the bottom.
Anyway, any kind of jigging is fun for me! I only wish I could have hooked into a bigger one. Although, with all these shorts, it seems like the season is starting to wind down. I hope I can get in another trip or two before it comes to an end.
-Bob
