We decided to do a little scouting for a tournament we are in next week. Anthony and I headed out of Squan in the soup.
A blind man could have located bait. Although with very low visibility pretty much everyone was blind. Our first stop we could hear birds working and splashes but could not locate them in the fog (I had decided not go any shallower than 20-25' when not able to see the shoreline). The bait was everywhere, I think in the 45+ nm we covered there were only about 3 nm that had no bait. It was on top with birds working it, blanketing the bottom suspended you name it we found. Unfortunately there were no bass working the schools.
We made several stops that had more promising marks on the sonar and jigged. Anthony had two hookups that soon dropped off. Once the fog started to lift a little more we gave up jigging and made the run to our intended destination. With flat seas we made good time at 28kts to our nest stop.
Once there we jigged a little with only a few hits decided to go on the troll. Trolled up the rocks, across, up to the cedars, along the west side of the reef and back down to the rocks. Had one nice knockdown and boated two bluefish with Anthony dropping one boat side. He called it a graceful release or something like that but I wasn't buying it.
On the way in we made a quick stop on some mussel beds but there were only short sea bass and blackfish. There were a lot of boats drifting and anchored bottom fishing the mussel beds and rocky bottom areas. There were also tons of pots and traps there which was suprising. I have never seen that many there but I guess with the pressure from Reef Rescue we will win the reefs back but lose some other productive bottom in the process.
It was a nice day on the water once the fog lifted. The fog definitely made for an uneasy run out but all in all it was good to be back in my home waters.
A blind man could have located bait. Although with very low visibility pretty much everyone was blind. Our first stop we could hear birds working and splashes but could not locate them in the fog (I had decided not go any shallower than 20-25' when not able to see the shoreline). The bait was everywhere, I think in the 45+ nm we covered there were only about 3 nm that had no bait. It was on top with birds working it, blanketing the bottom suspended you name it we found. Unfortunately there were no bass working the schools.
We made several stops that had more promising marks on the sonar and jigged. Anthony had two hookups that soon dropped off. Once the fog started to lift a little more we gave up jigging and made the run to our intended destination. With flat seas we made good time at 28kts to our nest stop.
Once there we jigged a little with only a few hits decided to go on the troll. Trolled up the rocks, across, up to the cedars, along the west side of the reef and back down to the rocks. Had one nice knockdown and boated two bluefish with Anthony dropping one boat side. He called it a graceful release or something like that but I wasn't buying it.
On the way in we made a quick stop on some mussel beds but there were only short sea bass and blackfish. There were a lot of boats drifting and anchored bottom fishing the mussel beds and rocky bottom areas. There were also tons of pots and traps there which was suprising. I have never seen that many there but I guess with the pressure from Reef Rescue we will win the reefs back but lose some other productive bottom in the process.
It was a nice day on the water once the fog lifted. The fog definitely made for an uneasy run out but all in all it was good to be back in my home waters.
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