Woke up this chilly morning and headed north to meet up with Capt. Joe and Bob G. to do some striper and possibly some sea bass fishing today. The frost was definitely on the pumpkin (as they say) and also on the boat! Met up with the guys a little after 8. As I arrived Joe was hosing down the dock and boat to clear some of the early morning ice.
As Joe took us out Shark River Inlet we were greeted by fairly flat seas and a cold, stiff WNW wind. Joe hung a right and we headed south looking for some bird play along the beach. Failing that, we set up a troll with some umbrella shad rigs and motored down the beach. Landed about 8-10 bluefish up to 8 lbs. trolling. All or mostly all of our bites were on the trailing Clark/Pet spoons. Also put two stripers in the boat. One keeper at 29" and the other was just shy of 28".
The wind by that time had shifted almost totally out of the north and the seas became a bit choppier. Joe commented that it was certainly the right decision not to head out to the reef for sea bass. We probably would have taken a beating.
Trolling our way back north, we spotted some bird action and broke out the jigging rods where we played catch and release with some smaller blues in the 2 to 4 lb. range. The fish were not under every patch of diving gulls so we had to work a little to get on them. And when I say
we had to work a little, I mean Joe.
After having our fun with the cocktails, we made the run back to Shark River in an effort to avoid the blowout tide that Joe encountered the previous day. We were back at the dock by 2:00pm and on the road by 2:30.
Thanks Joe. It was another fun day on the Irish Ayes!
Too bad she'll be put to bed next week.
