After making several shake down trips
I had the Irish Ayes out for the first 'real' fishing starting last weekend.
All trips were for striped bass. Most trips produced several (ranging from one to nine) fish with one trip ending with the odor of skunk. Most fish were in the 25 pound range with several fish hitting the 35+ pound mark.
Today, we had our best trip of the season.
We started out on the Sea Girt reef looking for some seabass. With a slow drift over one of the reef's wrecks we managed one skate. While on our third non-productive drift I got a text message from ReelNauti-Bill about a huge bass bite down south. Made the run just in time to miss the bite.
Thanks for the info Bill, it did aim us in the right direction.
Started heading north to check out our usual striper haunts. As we neared Manasquan Inlet all hell broke loose. Saw a nice sized bunker school and headed over to it. As we neared, the school exploded. The bass and bunker were everywhere with the bass hitting the bunker out of the water and turning somersaults two feet in the air! Started snagging bunker and couldn't get the bait back to the boat before having a bass inhale it. Stayed on this pod for a while. Couldn't get many bunker to the boat for bait, most were taken by the bass before that.
When the action slowed we continued on our northerly trek. Got to Spring Lake and found the same action there. Bunker and bass. What a sight. Had four of us on the boat and kept six fish and released at least six others.
It wasn't several hours of action but we did have two really nice flurries. These are the type of days you dream about.
Will be making our first fluke try tomorrow. (Will have an eye out for bunker on our way in.)
