Played Hookey

Left the dock at 6:30...didn't realize I goofed on departure time till I got to the dock. Forgot to adjust my routine to standard time from daylight savings time.

Broke the inlet and the sun was already up and there were birds working at the mouth. With good marks on the sonar I jigged for a few minutes with not a touch, I also did not see any of the other five boats hook up so I did not stay there long.

Ran South and kept pod hopping and jigging. Had a steady pick of a range of blues and bass with about a 50/50 ratio, at this point it was still all shorts. I would move on when the fleet would join me.

Started working off the piers in 35-38' of water and had steady top water action with mostly short bass and an occasional bluefish for about an hour before the fleet showed up and put the fish down. Had a blast with small poppers and was about to get the fly swatter out but that was when the bite died due to boat traffic.

After speaking with Bri Time, and others from BFH I headed South along IBSP again pod hopping till I got to the pavilion. Still with about a 50/50 ration to shorts to blues. Then I jigged up and lost two fish that were about 30-32" trying to get them in the net. This was the first time I was using the larger net solo so it took a few tries to get the coordination down of the large hoop and long handle. Next fish was a 28.5" that I swung thinking it was short but found its way into the box.

Shortly after bite started to really slow I went up on the troll. I pulled a black tube rig and chartreuse and white homemade mojo with a 6" Gulp chartreuse power grub. Within 10 minutes both rods went off. The mojo seemed to have a larger fish but I decided to tend to the wire line first. Bad move...the umbrella rig yielded a short and after boating that fish, grabbing the other rod, taking two cranks it was gone. Most likely a bass as the grub had no teeth marks or missing parts.

Released the short and reset the spread and had pretty steady action zig zagging up and down between a 1/2 mile North and South of the pavilion in 35-45' of water.

Had to leave to go to the eye doctor and left the fish biting though it was slowing down as it approached slack current. Did not mark much on the ride North back to MI and only say one pod of birds working. Did pass a fin, stopped to see what it was since it was small...was a baby mola mola, only about two feet across. It was a little timid at first but then swam right up to the boat. Tried to take a picture but it did not turn out good. It was the smallest one I have ever seen.

It was a beautiful day on the water with very light winds, flat seas and non-stop action. It was good talking to all the BFH members. Thanks for twisting my arm and calling me down Brian. Was considering going wreck fishing and not having to make the long run home. It was a little frustrating though, I dropped a lot of fish for some reason. I changed out hooks and tried singles, doubles and trebles...it did not seem to matter if jigging or trolling. I would take a half dozen cranks sometimes more and fish was gone. At first I checked the barbs on my hooks thinking some of my buddies may have played a trick on me but they were not flattened. I did lose about about a half dozen jigs to bluefish competition bite offs but that is to be expected.

I tried several jigs, Sea Striker JigFish (Mega Bait style jig), AVA's, Kroc's, SPRO prime swimming (don't think they are made anymore, great sand eel imitation though) and bucktails. Had blues on everything, bass all came on the JigFish jigs in blue/silver, blue/yellow/silver or black/silver. Blue/Silver and blue/yellow/silver seemed to have the higher catch rates though.

Anyway finally tally for the day for the fish that made to the boat was around 30-40 bluefish and 27 bass with one keeper in the box and two lost boat side. Total for dropped fish was around three dozen. My back, shoulders and arms are sore today s I type this out but its all good!

Sun Harbor Fall Bass Tourney

This weekend is the First Annual Sun Harbor Bay Club Fall Striped Bass Tournament. I know there is growing concern over the weather for Saturday, hopefully the fish and weather gods will cooperate and clear out all the weather by the Captain's Meeting. Last year there were a few tournaments that were threatened right up until the day of the tournament with bad weather...and we were fortunate that it cleared each time.

We have some great door prizes and give-aways in the Captain's Bags this year from Mann's Bait Company, Shimano, Tournament Grade Tackle, Lunker City and more. There will be food and refreshments at the weigh-in and it is sure to be a good time. Currently there are about 18 boats registered and we anticipate more the night of the Captain's Meeting.

So come on down and register Friday night at the Captain's Meeting if you have not already registered. It will be held at Sun Harbor Bay Club, 451 E. Bay Avenue Barnegat, NJ...see you there!

Entry Form

Success without Being There

Apparently I missed a great day today. Got a call late Friday night and had to tend to family health issues. Mom is recovering well after emergency kidney stone removal surgery today.

After tending to mom before surgery Saturday I ran down to the boat to fuel it up for next week and drop off the gear to some of my regular crew so they could put it to good use in my absence today...they are sure glad I did.

Not sure what time they broke MI, I know it was early, probably in the neighborhood of 6:30. Not even 5 miles from the inlet they were into bass and blues right away. They had double and triple headers on umbrella rigs with tubes and shads with both rods going off at the same time several times...and then the one rod really starts screaming. Several minutes later they boat double header keepers on the black tube umbrella rig-a 30 incher and 31.6 pounder!

The slaughter continued with them boating, catching and releasing shorts and keepers till they were tired with a few fish lost as well. Not sure what time they headed in but it sounded like they were running when I spoke to them around 10:30 and Tommy said they went in early leaving the fish biting. Grand total was in the neighborhood of 75 blues and 50-60 bass. He said most boats were just running right over fish and the areas they were catching all morning in route to other destinations.

Wire Line Trolling Tips & Tricks

This seems to be a hot topic lately so I thought I would start a new thread where we can share some tips, tricks and ideas that we do when trolling with wire line. Below are some of the things we do, I know a lot is personal preference. Please post your methods and ways in comments so others can also learn and pickup new ways of doing some old things. Enjoy.

Wire Types: Basically there are two types used, monel and stainless. Monel is denser than stainless but much more forgiving, it is less springy than stainless and does not kink as much. But that comes at a cost of about three times the price for the same test line and 300' length. Monel also stretches over time causing it to get thinner and thinner. Depending on how much you troll the wire will determine how long it takes for it to get thin enough to cause mystery break offs. I typically use a shot of wire for two to three seasons or, four to six half seasons depending on if you started using the shot in the spring or fall.

Marking Wire: I have tried the Malin pre-marked wire and it is not worth the extra money or even for the same money as non-marked. They started to slide on the wire the very first day we used them. I know a few shop owners that fought with Malin to give them refunds on the large spools they fill reels from because they had issues with them sliding as well. The best method I have come across is not easy to do and I have not mastered it yet...basically you use colored phone wire and create haywire twists and barrel wraps with the telephone wire onto the monel or stainless. When done this way they will never move for the life of the wire since they are interlocked with the haywire twist. The second best method I have used is to take a small board and pound two nails through it about a foot apart. Then cut a rubber band and tie each end around a nail stretching it a good amount in the process. Lay the wire over the stretched rubber band and then wrap tightly a colored piece of wire ten to fifteen times finishing with seven to nine barrel wraps on each end. This creates a good visual and also feeling mark if fishing in low light conditions. You can mark your wire however often as needed for your fishing habits. I personally mark it at 150', 200' and 250' as this covers all our needs.

Trolling Habits: I usually troll deeper water so we usually have the hole 300' out but if you are inshore and not deploying the whole shot of wire you should let out a few feet or crank in a few feet every ten to fifteen minutes to avoid creating a kink and also wearing a weak spot into monel especially, but should also do this with stainless.

Aluminum Spools: I have had Shimano Tekota 800 reels for three seasons now and my spools are healthy and fine. Yes they have a few pits on them but I have also seen worse on older Penn Senators with steel spools. The new anodized aluminum spools hold very well with wire line as long as you take care of them. We wash our rods and reels down after each trip, towel or chamois them off and then liberally apply CRC 656 to the whole reel and the wire, let it soak in a bit then towel off the reel and leave the wire coated well. This extends the life of the wire and the spool. Also about once a month or if I suspect damage I lay the rod on my bench, attach a hand crank spool to the other end and remove the wire from the reel looking for damage to the wire and also checking the marks are in the right location with a line counter. I also take this time to clean the exposed portion of the spool and apply some CRC directly to it. Once I am satisfied the line is OK I crank it back onto the reel pulling it through an oil soaked rag.

Wire to Mono Knots: To attach the wire to the backing I tie a Bimini twist in the backing first. Then I tie a long slender haywire twist in both ends of the wire line. This allows you to use a loop-to-loop connection to your backing and replace a shot of wire quickly and easily on the water should you break off, kink or have other damage to your wire causing it to be unusable. For the leader I tie a twelve to fifteen turn Albright knot and use eight to twelve feet of eighty or one hundred pound fluorocarbon leader to which I attach a two hundred pound ball bearing snap swivel.

Spoon Attachment Points: Whether the spoon comes with one or not I always attach a heavy duty, stainless split ring to it. I have had several spoons fail or severely weaken by them being attached directly to the snap swivel.

Spoon Weights: On spoons with weights I use either 3M marine silicone sealant or 5200 (whichever is handy). Most manufacturers of spoons recommend that you check the screws every fifteen minutes of use. I have found that if you bed them well with the silicone sealant or 5200 you pretty much don't ever have to worry about them coming loose and losing a weight to the screws loosening from the pumping action.

Trolling Speed: This has a lot of personal preference but we usually don't look at our tach or our SOG or SOW readings as much as we watch the rod tips. One thing we try to avoid at all costs though is trolling with the current. We always troll against it or across it. As for the actual speed we adjust the throttle till we have big slow pulses in the rods. You can run the spoon only a few feet behind the boat so you can see if it is wobbling back and forth or spinning. This will give you an idea of what the pulsing of the rod tip should look like.

Spare Shots of Wire: You have extra rods, reels, plugs, plastics, sinkers and everything else you use...carry an extra shot of wire. I keep at least one sometimes two spare shots with the trolling gear. You can mark them ahead of time and tie the haywire twists in the ends and even attach the flouro leader too. If you use a Bimini twist in your backing changing it out is a breeze as long as the damage to the line or where it parted is not in your backing. Even if it was once proficient with a Bimini it only takes a minute or two to whip another into your backing. Having a spare or two on board can really save the day sometimes.

Striper & Wreck Trip

We had non-stop action all day...while it was not some of the species or sizes of them we wanted it, it was an awesome day on the water.

Left the dock at 6:25, broke the inlet, looked North East and South...saw some birds to the South and started jigging around them...nothing. Continued South away from the fleet near the inlet and kept working the birds and bait pods...had a couple of bumps on plastics, bucktails and various irons but no fish.

Headed down to Seaside when we got a call on the phone from a friend of one of the crew that was catching bass. Put out a dark red tube rig, pearl and black back shad umbrella rig and a chartreuse mojo. The tube rig got a couple knockdowns but nothing came tight. Shad rigs and mojo's started hooking up almost immediately.

Had a steady pick of medium and large blues with short bass mixed in about every two blues then a bass. We kept working that area and bait pods and switched out the tubes for pearl and blue back shads and that became the hot color so we switched both umbrella rigs to pearl/blue and put out the white/black mojo's since I did not make up any blue/white yet (shame on me for thinking they would not go after a blueback herring pattern yet). We kept at it with several fish on each pass until about noon when we picked up and ran up to a wreck in 65' of water.

Put the anchors out and two of the crew had sea bass in the boat before we came tight. Once we came tight over the wreck it was drop and reel action the whole time. We shifted a couple of times over it to try and find some bigger fish. We had a constant pick of sea bass and monster porgies (near 2 lbs). Then the wind died out and when the current went slack it was hard to stay over the wreck.

We picked up the anchors and drifted a few near by rock piles and put a few more fish in the box before heading in around 2:30 pm.

My best guess on the final tally was around 30 blues (kept 10), 5 short bass, 100 plus sea bass (kept 20) and 60 porgies (kept 15). What a great November day on the water, calm seas, fair winds, warm sunny day and fish in the box. It was great talking to all the members of Barnegat Fishin' Hole on the radio...shee's a keeper, just a fluke, Davo, heard EMALS but I don't think he could hear me, speedbump, sorry if I missed anyone (talked to dozens of guys on the radio yesterday), and even Jim made it out yesterday-I bet the neighbors are glad to see the lawn ornament gone!