November 26 and 30, 2023 – Some Minor Frustration Followed by Some Out and Out Elation During the Fall Migration – Ocean County

Birds, sometimes just out of reach.

Buoyed by the prospect of NW winds on the morning of Sunday, November 26, Jeff and I met up at 5:45 AM on a street end in a beach town in Central, not Northern, New Jersey this time.  There was a bit of a swell that the NW wind had not yet knocked down after a couple days of strong South winds, which had dirted the water in addition to roughing it up.  It was not good.  We stayed put at a decent spot for first light, but we moved around when nothing was happening at 7:30 AM.  What little activity we saw during our travels was not in casting distance even with a 15 MPH NW wind.  Sometimes they were painfully close to being in range for me with a spoon!  We tried but suffered another skunk, unless you count two shad I landed on a teaser.  We did find a great rip and bar at low tide that I made a mental note to revisit at a better tide and with cleaner water.  That was the plan for November 30, and it proved to be a good one.

Jeff found a sunrise porker.

We were on the beach again on Thursday morning at 6 AM waiting for the sun and the bass.  They showed up big time.  I knew from some boots on the ground on Wednesday, including young Peter, that there was a bite in the area.  So did everyone else by Thursday, of course.  The beach looked like it was hosting a Saturday crowd.  Who am I to judge, as Jeff and I were both using each other as work appointments!  We both had a hard stops around 9 AM, and we stuck to the plan.  I was home and cleaned up for a Zoom meeting at 12 PM.  But in those three hours of fishing, we landed close to 50 bass.  I know I had just shy of 30 fish, and many, many were emergency slot keeper size, not the bonus slot keeper size, with at least four between us that were closer to 34 inches.  Jeff had a big fat boy just before sunrise, and I also had two over the slot early.  We left them biting too—eyes to the sand, don’t look back, you have to go to work.  It would have been harder to leave had we not torn them up for three hours.

More Jeff fish.

It appeared to be a sandeel bite because it was mostly what I call a no-show blitz.  Nothing showing besides a bass part if you were lucky enough to glimpse one, but the fish were there in waves and smaller packs.  A green SP minnow was definitely doing some work, but Jeff had success on the schoolbus.  After catching 20 fish on trebles, I started tossing the bunker spoon with a single siwash hook, and they ate that too.  The last three fish I caught when it was just a pick from the bars hit a classic yellow/orange Yozuri Mag Minnow that actually sinks and digs into the bar until it flies over deeper water in a slough or cut and gets clobbered.  It was a favorite bait the last time sandeels had dug in along the bars pre-2019.   

I found a few (dozen) too.

It was crowded, but we were lucky to have some good guys and good fishermen nearby.  Jeff and I were separated once the action got hot and heavy, as I have tunnel vision and get focused on the job at hand.  Between us we actually had two Jersey-famous celebs, I guess.  Mickey and Nick.  If you know who they are, you know who they are.  Let’s just say one was once a rock star from Bucks County, PA.  Tangles were kept to a minimum, like maybe two in three hours, and plenty of laughs and good times were had.  I am wired to seek out the bite away from the crowd, but that is impossible of late, so it is good to be in good company at least!  I have had some jamoke-fests, especially in MoCo, and I am not even talking about my good buddy Sandy Dunkin!  Jeff had at least 15 fish, maybe more, and probably wanted me closer to photograph all of them to send to his brother-in-law and my good friend, Dolf.  I told him I got the best one for him, and the rest all looked the same!  Call me crazy, but I may head down on Friday too.  Why not start December right, am I right?  Stay tuned, yo.

SP, Mag Minnow, THex bunker spoon, etc.  A lot of fish between us!