I had to work today, which was bad, but I finished up early which was good. I also had my gear in the car which was even better, but I only had a few hours to sundown and still had to get back home at a reasonable time- so I fired up google maps and started looking for a likely spot or two where I could at least get some casting practice on the way home.
I found an unlikely place that was not very far out of my way.
I happened to be sweeping past the amboys in hybrid mode, and something caught my eye, a little stretch of beach along the south side of perth amboy that looked like it had a few jettys. I ran a few google searches and discovered that Perth Amboy basically has a three mile stretch of waterfront park with free parking that is open to fishing, and even has several smaller piers.
Turned out to be a promising looking spot- several local were fishing at various points of the section I took a look at (I walked maybe a half mile stretch between the west end of the waterfront park area and the first pier). When I got there the tide was starting to come in so I took the opportunity to look around.
Perth Amboy is somewhat Urban, but the waterfront park area looks quite nice- free parking, a recently done walkway, somewhat revcntly redone fishing piers, and a decent view. I won't kid you, the spot wasn't pristinely clean, but it wasn't as bad as I expected.
It looked like there was quite a bit of structure at all manner of ranges from the beach, reachable with either quick and easy casts, and even more options for people who carry heavy artillery. The beach slopes down so you can get a good read of the structure as you walk to the beach. As the tide came in, there was a reasonable amount of bait jumping around within about 10 feet of the water's edge, and there were plenty of clam shell pieces and pieces of crab shells scattered along the shore so there's a variety of bait out there.
In any case, I had time to take a short walk around, and toss around a few lures before heading home, not long enough to figure out what to target and what bait works best- although it seems to be a situation where fresh bait to "bring the fish to you" is probably the best bet. Biggest con is that there are no bait shops nearby!
In any case, it looks promising enough to go back for a longer outing (with better bait) and take my camera along so I can give a better more coherent report and actually see what's biting there. This trip was more about me trying to get used to using a big surf rod without hurting myself and others in the process than it was about catching anything.
Heh, maybe I can file it under "Urban Surf Fishing"
Here's the google maps location - the satellite photo of the area is clearly out of date, there is more there than the photo shows.
http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=40.500274,-74.274734&spn=0.005205,0.008615&t=h&z=17&om=1
