Met my friend Chris after work at the dock in Keyport and headed out around 6:45PM. The wind was blowing pretty strong from Staten Island and the sea was pretty rough. I decided to ride over to Staten Island so we could anchor up in calmer seas. We dropped anchor by the Raritan light rockpile in 35' of water on the side of the channel. We set up two poles with fresh clams and and one with a Bunker head. I was also tossing small chunks of bunker over the side to draw some fish our way. We hooked up with several Skates and crabs.
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After a few hours we decided to drift back towards Union beach and had no luck. So we dropped anchor off the north side of union beach near the creek in 10' of water and rough seas.
Ten minutes later one of the deadstick poles started clicking, tick, tick, tick, Kind of like Jaws. I picked it up, turned off the clicker and slowly took up the slack off the fishfinder rig, Then I had him! The fish ran strong for a few seconds and I swore it was a bluefish because it was fighting very hard, "The Striper I caught on Friday did not fight too much because it was gut hooked", when it got close to the boat it jumped out of the water and Chris yelled "Striper" its a keeper!
And finally after a one missed net attempt we had it in the boat. It was 33" long and weighed in at 16lbs on the rapala digital scale. So we did get some satisfaction for being out all night on the rough seas. And I'm trying again when the weather breaks.
