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| The boy a little after 6 AM. |
I got my teenaged son out of bed at 4 AM on a Sunday to
hunt for the sometimes-elusive migratory striped bass. The whales and the boats killed it today, I
am sure, but we were standing on the beach.
Bait was everywhere! At one
point, I was kicking both peanuts and large sandeels out of the wash so that
the boy could live line them in a last-ditch effort for us to connect with at least
once bass for all the effort. We started
before sunrise in a spot where I found bait last week, but when nothing
materialized in that magic hour, we started running and gunning. He did the math, and we covered 20 miles of
coast, searching for birds, boats, bait balls, twenty-five F150s with rod racks
at the same access spot, and so on. We
found fish just out of range of the beach twice. The tide was falling all morning, so I even
went out on the bar with a 3 oz pencil a few times. I got probably two casts into the hovering
but not diving birds, but I did not get a blowup or a hookup.
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| Peanuts and eels outnumbered the bass. |
After finding the whale show at two different spots in
Monmouth County, we crossed the inlet into Ocean County after 8 AM, and we
found a bonanza of bait in the wash and only 10 other guys there to witness the
show. By the way, we tried in vain to
get a video of the whales ascending out of the water, mouths wide open, swallowing
peanuts and eels by the dozens. I guess
that’s why the mobile whale watch dude in Belmar makes a living at it and I don’t. At the Ocean County spot, we saw two slot or
just under slot fish caught, but for the amount of bait inside the bar, it
should have been bonkers. It may have
been bonkers after 2 PM when the next high tide was due, but the boy’s waders
were leaking, and it was only 10 AM when we decided to quit. I learned my lessons fishing with him as a
youth when I kept him out way too long, and I now allow him to make the call
when he is done. He had fun and wants to
get out again this fall. Time to start
looking for Black Friday deals on cheap chest waders since I now recall those waders leaked last fall....
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| Sure was pretty. |
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