Who ate my bunker???

[Xfire2149]

I was keeping the boat in northern Barnegat bay and although it was very nice and I'm glad I tried some different waters and towns. After a couple of months going through the Point Pleasant canal (which isn’t so pleasant by the way)one too many times against the tide, I decided to move the boat to Raritan bay. By midday Saturday I was set up in my new slip and fishing happily in the middle of Raritan. The bunker were thick and to that point I had never seen them schooling that thick. I have cast nets and snagging hooks aboard the boat and haven’t used them much. Seeing how tight the bunker were packed in I decided to try to snag one. Using a heavy weight8' bass rod and a small conventional reel with 40' braided line I tossed the weighted treble hook into the tightly packed fins. First sideways haul and BAM! hook up!

That was pretty darned fun and the foot long bunker fought hard as he tried to avoid the boat. In short order I had half dozen in the live well. All was fun and we were thinking about heading out further to use the bunks as bait when I snagged another. He started the good fight running and diving the best he could against the stiff actioned bass rod and then all of the sudden he kind of quit fighting. The weight was there but no more tugging and pulling. No more running the rod tip to the water trying to get free. Slightly upset in my bunkers lack of fight I reeled him up to see what his problem was. As I lifted him from the water I immediately saw why he was so unmotivated or may the opposite why he was so eager to get in the boat. The lower half of his body was severed from the upper half in a clean smooth half moon bite. He was only half a bunker!

We stayed for awhile offering up sacrificial and hooked bunker on the liveline but we had no takers. We did however reel up another for or five half eaten bunks. Seems like they were attacked just shortly after being snagged.

Oddly no one on my boat want to go swimming anymore.

[fluke - u]

  .. Some big blues running around ...

[Hunter 2]

Most likely bluefish.  Sharks would eat more than half the bunker. A small shark bit this Fluke in half in the Raritan bay boatside. What marina are you fishing out of now?  I'm at Wagners in Keyport. 

[Bucktail]

Bluefish

[Xfire2149]

I'm in Atlantic Highlands. Learing to fish here via trial and error. Caught a few short fluke, a couple medium blues, and small black bass yesterday on spearing and bucktails. Good times!

As I was moving the boat from Brick NJ another fisherman recognized me from fishing in the Manasquan inlet. He reported an 8' - 10' shark at the mouth of the inlet. Anyone else see it???/

[Hotrod]

Yea.. always good to leave that snagged bunker go for a little.  If bass are lurking.. they will pick up on that "lazy" Something is wrong with that fish"  and go for it out of hundreds to choose from..

[Hunter 2]

When livelining Bunker try cutting of a pectoral fin and half it's tail with scissors. It's will swim erratically and emit stressed fish signals to the predators in the area

[TONYS2]

A few years ago while fishing sandy hook bay in the fall we lost the tail end of a 5-6lb. blue in same way, with that large circular bite.  They're out there!

[Xfire2149]

Snipping a pectoral fin and "halfing" the tail!!!! What a great idea! so many little tricks. Thanks for the tip I'll use that one always. Makes perfect sense.

[Xfire2149]

So this weekend I brought surgical scissors on the boat with me. We made a stop to net a bucket full of spearing. We used some of the littler spearing to fish for some snappers. After catching a small handfull we placed them in the live well and headed out. I snipped most of the tail and one pectoral fin of the snappers and live lined them. It took a long while but eventually the conventional reels clicker started singing. Pretty good technique.

[Hunter 2]

Good to see that.  What species did you catch?

[Bucktail]

 

[Xfire2149]

Caught blues but they were a little larger than fish we've caught lately. I'd say they were 20" fish.

[Bucktail]

Fun!