Black Friday took on a whole new meaning to day as a 6 man crew boxed a limit of bass to 35"s and blackfish to #11.40..
A little bumpy as we turned the tip of the Hook with an outgoing tide and a brisk NE wind but once we were out front the seas were very fishable. A great deal of bird life was observed from 1.5-2 miles off the beach south. We trolled a single umbrella rig until we wee hooked up (which never took more than a minute or 2) then drop the jigs in and it was game on. My first drop of the jig yielded the first keeper bass of the day. Multiple hook ups were the rule. Bass out numbered bluefish. 3 short bass to every 2 keeper caught. Bass seemed to be swallower than the blues as everytime we got deeper than 40" it as bluefish.
had 11 bass in the box before switching to blackfishing. Took a little time to build some life but we eventually built some life up. Bite started on 1/2 green crabs, then switched to 1/2 a white-legger and back to green. Before the bite got going I dropped a 1/2 green crab down and got smacked right away. Knew the fish was a nice one but it didn't fight like a blackfish. Didn't fight like a big spiny either. Finally got some color on it & it turned out to be a nice 33" keeper striper. Since that finished our limit on bass there would be no jigging on the way home. Anyway the blackfish bite picked up steam and we put some real nice tog in the box, several in the #8-9 class topped by an #11.42 bucked tooth varmit.
