Had to do some school stuff this morning so I couldn't get out at the right tide. When I finished that up around noon it would've been dead low tide and besides the bait shop had no sand or bloodworms. So my first striper of the year will still have to wait.
Bought a dozen nightcrawlers and headed over to Warinanco Park Pond in Roselle around 1:30. Fastforward an hour and I am having the classic skunk. This really shocked me. For one, this pond is absolutely infested with catfish. Almost every time I am here I can't keep these little 4-6" bullheads off my worms. Today for some reason they just weren't there. I also think this would've been the first time I got the skunk using nightcrawlers. This is almost always a full proof bait when nothing else is working. A small sunny or a bullhead is a given, but not today. Just as I was packing up to leave, I dropped my bait down right at my feet. I did this only to see how deep the water was at this particular spot. Turns out it was about a foot. No sooner than my bait hit the bottom, fish on. To my surprise, a nice crappie. First time I've caught a crappie from here. Maybe there are some bass in here, you never know. Stayed for about 20 more minutes with nothing doing.
Well since I barely used any nightcrawlers and didn't just want to waste them, I decided to bring them home and try again tomorrow morning.
Got back to school for something I had to do and 4 and turns out it was cancelled. Now what to do?
I coach volleyball in Flemington on Mondays and Wednesdays from 8-10 so I decided to drive west a little earlier and hit a pond about 3 miles from where I work. Got there around 5:30 and it was cast and reel fishing for about the entire hour I stayed. All the bluegills you could ask for. Most were small, only about 5-6" or so but still better than nothing. The biggest went around 8". I'm still hoping for that trophy 10" bluegill to be on the end of my line one of these days. One interesting thing about these bluegills is that they all had a weird but beautiful purple coloring to them. I don't ever remember seeing this much purple on bluegills. The color didn't come out too well in the pictures but you can kind of see it on the last one.
Total for the day: 1 crappie, 30+ bluegills, 2 ponds, and 100+ miles traveled.