November 30, 2018 – It Only Took Until the Last Day of the Month – Ocean County Surf

Before high tide flattened, some schoolies made my short day.

On the eve of December, I feel lucky to have stuck five bass today between 20 and 24 inches.  I only fished just over 2.5 hours in the middle of the day, I have put zero time into the surf this fall, and I don’t think my rods have been cast since last December.  All but one fat little fish was on a yellow over white half and half teaser fly about 4 inches long, so I guess I was still fly fishing, only with my 9 foot Ron Arra 108 3 rod—the perfect tool to enjoy rats and small schoolies this time of year—although I did not have to settle for any true rats today either.  I also got lucky with a cloudy day because the high tide was smack dab in the middle of the afternoon at around 1:30 PM; otherwise, I don’t know if I would have been as successful standing on the sand only knee deep.  Despite calm winds, there was a swell coming from the NE, waves about 10 seconds apart and some nearly 4 feet high, so no wading out onto the bar, sadly tempting because the fish I did catch came close to end of my casts.  The water was also pretty stained from rainwater, I assume, because grass was not an issue.  When water is dirty, I usually play around with contrasts: use a dark plug and a bright teaser or a black teaser and a bright plug.  The time leading up to high tide seemed to be most productive and may have even cleaned up the surf because instead of brownish whitewater I was timing casts behind waves into actual white water.

Fly fishing?

One fish ate a 6-inch sinking Mag Minnow in dark shades of purples, but the other 4 took the bright teaser, so I suppose the water was eventually not too stained for them to see just about anything they wanted to see.  I watched either some shad or Atlantic herring flop for a minute, but they were quickly gone, and I saw small spearing or rainbait as well.  Since my 1 oz T-Hex never got bit, nor did an epoxy eel, I assume these small bass were eating small baitfish, not sandeels like further north in Monmouth County and, possibly still, New York.  Brant geese and a handful of cormorants were diving for these small baits, but no gulls or gannets were in sight, even though some boats did work all day about an half mile off the surf.  It was Friday, so there were a handful of buggies riding around searching too, but I had a few favorite rips and bars to myself.  The soft sand from replenishments is annoying to walk on, but even that can’t seem to stop Mother Nature from recreating some similar soft structure in the same or close to the same spots each fall.   Still, I do miss my jetties and get all nostalgic in places like Bradley Beach when I can walk on rocks.  I dream of what Deal once was…

Cloudy midday certainly helped my cause as high tide was at 1:38 PM.

As the flood tide stopped moving, I got one last fish, perhaps the largest at 24 inches of fat football, but the slack tide provided no whitewater cover on the bars, I gather, so things died out.  I fished for about 45 minutes after the flood, hoping the outgoing would improve things, but I ran out of time because I still wanted to be home before 4 PM to meet the boy after school.  Not a bad first day out, though.  The only thing I forgot to put in my bag was a knife or braid scissors, so when I wanted to change out to a shorter leader, cutting the line was interesting (shells worked better than teeth, which my dentist will be happy to hear).  Otherwise, I had enough of the right stuff today to be successful in a very short window.  Heck, some dude beachcombing even gave me a couple shads and an epoxy peanut that he scavenged from the high water line, so I came home with more stuff than I left with.  I may try again on Sunday, perhaps with my dad.  Pete was kind enough to share some intel, and he may go Saturday, so I may have even more.  Now that I broke the seal, I will likely start jonesing to get out again this upcoming week.  Come on water temps, stay at 50 degrees or above for a little while longer!

Sunday?  Next week when tides and sunrise match up better?