Author Topic: Hunter 2- Election day Stripers 11/04/2008 (Read 4491 times)

Hunter 2 · « **on:** November 04, 2008, 11:18:22 PM »

Left keyport dock alone today around 6:20am. Got some Intel from a NJSWF member that the striper's might be up the Raritan. The fog was not too bad. The air temp was 50 deg, the water was in the low 50's. The seas were low and the sky was overcast. As I was approaching the Raritan river I noticed something off the port side about 150 yards away. I decided to check it out and it turned out to be the bow of a 16 to 18' boat penetrating the surface of the water. It was not bobbing up and down so it was stuck in the mud. It appeared to have been sunk for some time because the side was brown. It must have shifted and recently surfaced. I used my cell phone to call it in to the Coast Guard and gave them the GPS info. I hope nobody hits that at night when cruising 20 or 30 mph.
When I was in the Raritan I drifted clams and eels by the bridges and I threw some tin and shads at the stanchions. I witnessed a couple of Striper's chasing bait near the surface but I was not getting any action. I made my move towards Romer Schoal.
I checked my usual spots heading towards Romer schoal with no luck. The Clam boats were in the Raritan reach channel. As I arrived at romer Schoal I saw around 100 boats anchored up and a couple were leaving. I found a spot and dropped anchor. I put out a live eel and a clam. The eel got a few hits and I reeled in just the eel head $:-\$ . On the clam I caught a Skate $:-\$

. I pulled anchor and head over to Sandy Hook. About a mile of the beach the birds were working chasing small Spearing. I set out a Shad Umbrella rig and hooked up with a Striper and a Gator Bluefish. My Umbrella rig was getting all chewed up and was hard to deploy by myself so I switched it out for a tube umbrella rig, this looked more like Spearing too. For the next couple of hours I pulled in 20+ short Striper's and 25+ gator blues. I usually had on two at a time. One time I landed 2 Blues and a Striper on the umbrella. What a fight that was!

I also tried throwing Shads, Butterfly jigs, Diamond jigs with and without tubes, and creek Chub surface poppers in red and white. I did land a Striper on the topwater popper. I released all the fish and head back around 5PM. A guy at the marina showed me 3 keeper Striper's up to 37" he caught on clams at Romer Schoal around 3PM. outgoing tide. He said he was the only boat out there!

Hunter 2 · « **Reply #1 on:** November 04, 2008, 11:19:46 PM »

more pics

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Author Topic: Hunter 2- Election day Stripers 11/04/2008 (Read 4491 times)