Fishin' should be turnin' the corner!

Aug 8, 2000:

   So lets talk about fishin'. It's now August, "hump-month" of the summer, and thus far, things have been almost stagnant on the striper front. At least in the suds that is. Yes, there have been some fish caught, but there always is. Some nice ones as well, but again, there always are. There really hasn't been anything developing in the suds locally, weakfish are around, shad are everywhere, blues are tiny and annoying, the fluke are unusually abundant on the sand...but the stripers aren't really doing that much. On average, a few fish a night, regardless of the manner of attack...and no real outstanding trips, just average and some better than average nights. I guess that's what July/early August fishing is noted for, slow bass fishing. Much as is usually true this time of year, while the suds are suffering, the rivers and bays are getting hotter...hotter all the time. As the suds are looking for a fresh shot of bait coupled with some rougher waters, the rivers/bays are gearing up to start releasing all the bait that's been growing/hanging out in them. The fish know this and often it is they who remind us! The best news on the fishing front recently is the fact that three month long exodus of peanut bunker from Raritan Bay is underway now, reports from a bunch of guys that the nuts are "turnin' the corner" as we speak. They started this exodus nearly a week ago, that should have them spread out down to the Long Branch area by now, if the bass/blues/weaks aren't slowing them down too much! I haven't been out during the daylight to check into this, but I'd be surprised if there wasn't some decent dawn/dusk/cloudy day bites going on from Long Branch north to and inside of Sandy Hook. I'm going to plan on a trip next time it's good and rainy or cloudy one afternoon soon, just to get a feel for what's goin' on up that way. Reports of plentiful Spanish mackerel are interesting me into a daylight trip as it is, the promise of peanuts and weaks and bass will help me off the fence and into a trip soon. The Spanish macks are pretty much available all over the place (from what I hear), jetties will give you a better shot at them, inlets even better. Small shiny metal fished on fluorocarbon with a realistic teaser 3 feet above it gets the nod for the spinning rod guys. Don't be afraid to blind cast for the little missiles, they mostly spread out and feed along our jetties, singles and double are the rule, you won't often find them schooled up ravaging bait the way you would the false albacore or bonito. Just keep casting with a rig you have confidence in, they'll surprise you in a big way when hey draw a bead on your shiny stuff! I don't eat fish much, but I understand these are some tasty critters.

   For the fly rod guys, same advice, blind casting on the fronts of jetties or deeper sections of beach, smallish flies like silicone spearing, sparse and bright clousers, or deceivers will all attract some attention. You don't need to strip like wild, but keep the fly coming at you, a quick one handed strip is a good starting place. Again, fluorocarbon should get you more bites, all these pelagics have great eye sight...they aren't quite as suspicious as the albacore, but they can be tough some times. The fact that they aren't quite as visible when feeding doesn't help, it's often blind faith till you hook the first one.

    The stripers should become more obvious as the peanuts move down the beach, I for one will be waiting to welcome them! Right now, rigged eels are still about your best bet, plugs taking a second to them for sure. In rougher waters, they'll eat both, but the nod would still go to the rigged eels for me. I just recently took about 30 photos of an eel rigging session and will incorporate them into the article I wrote last year on rigging eels. People have expressed interest in actually seeing how it's done along with the words, so that's what we'll do. I expect to have all the pictures up with the article in the next 48 hours, I'll let ya know! Weakfish continue to entertain us, but they are long and thin, lacking the thick bodies that we found in the spring, but a bent rod is still a bent rod and each weakfish will be welcomed! 

Sincerely,

Tim Surgent

More fishin' talk

Aug 10, 2000:

   Let's talk about fishin' some more, I mean, this is a site for fishing stuff after all! So, it's August, the beginning of the second week...and the water's getting warm all the sudden, like 74-75 degrees. We went over the pursuit of Spanish Mackerel a day or so ago and the fact that soon, the bonito and false albacore will be coming. BTW, the slang names for the false albacore need some clarification....we don't like "Fat Albert" but prefer the much more local nickname of "alba-turkey" or just plain turkey. Some folks get confused enough with the accepted name of Albacore...they aren't, they are False Albacore, not to be confused with their long finned cousins that cruise the canyons. You might find false albacore offshore, but you won't find true albacore on the beaches...at least you shouldn't but with recent finds like 5 foot swordfish 100 yds off the beach, I ain't making any promises as to what you won't find inshore! Recent news, a couple tarpon were caught in south Jersey, one of them a new state (potentially) record! I've also heard that a new state record (hearsay, no proof on my part) black drum was taken, a cobia caught in Raritan Bay, and a few black drum earlier in the year in Raritan Bay....which is all well and good and cool, but where's all the stripers! ;) OK, getting off track, bottom line, this time of year, as long as you are in the game, you never know what you're gonna run into out there, could be some weird exotic, could be a pack of ravenous bluefish, a school of stripers working over spearing in the wash, weakfish throwing themselves in the air eating the tiny peanuts, or maybe the mother of all stripers who's quietly sulking beneath those weakfish picking them off two at a time, there's just no telling. But for now, we're gonna talk about daytime fishing in the surf, daylight fishing actually, daytime's just too hot! What can one expect at dawn these days? First, you can almost count on seeing something, my last few trips that ended at dawn had me amazed at the number of things boiling in the wash, scant feet from the sand. Sure, they were mostly 1# blues and shad, but there were also fluke and some bass with them. It makes for interesting light plugging, light jigging, and excellent fly casting. the fish are eating spearing from 2-5 inches long and sand eels about the same size...thin, sparse flies will work on the fly rod and work as teasers, too. Shiny little jigs like the MegaBait Jigs in 3/4 to 1 1/2oz will get you way out there on the lighter tackle and they will get eaten, it's a fact! My only problem is that with so much new tuff to throw all the time for testing purposes, I can't get to all of it! I'd like to throw it all and add to my experience with all of it to report and guide those who ask, but I really wanna throw my two new fly rods that Orvis recently sent me to replace my two old favorites that I busted...that's another story! 

   So, it's pre dawn, you're goin' fishing...you're wondering what to expect. Expect to see shad and blues, Spanish Macks are likely as well. If there's any white water on the beach or on the jetties, you'll also likely find small stripers feeding in it...you might not see them, but small plugs and jigs with teasers fished in the white stuff will persuade them to make themselves known. The fluke have been quite cooperative in the suds, anyone looking for some fluke for the freezer would be well advised to hit the surf some high tide and throw small jigs, either shiny metal or small 4" Fin-S-Fish on small 3/8 to 5/8oz 5/0 jig heads. These aren't little fluke, most of what we've seen is 15-18" in the surf. I've had a record number (three) fluke grab a bomber in 4 feet of water this summer...I've caught them before on teasers, but these three came up to suck the bomber off the top at night, who said fluke were sissies? ;-) As this month progresses, we'll expect to see the peanut bunker come down from Raritan Bay, they are already on their way, I'd have to guess they are at least as far as Long Branch, possibly further south than that, but as I said, I haven't been out in the daytime to find them...maybe this afternoon? 

   Yet another front that needs some examination, Charlie got a yak the other day, now with the one I got from Rob (thanks Rob!), we've both got one...and that needs to dealt with. It's funny how many avenues these little water craft open up, at least in your skull. One of the first things we're planning is a fluke fly rod trip in the yaks, either in the rivers or in the flat surf...but soon we're gonna do one or the other. It's true, there really aren't enough hours in the day!

Sincerely,

Tim Surgent

This past week.....and the weekend!

Aug 12, 2000:

UPDATE: Yessir, here it is again, just like old times, Saturday morning, just got home from kayakin' on the edges of thunderstorms in the dark, landed a billion weaks on the fly rod...and a fluke....and now, to top it all off, the new   is up! ;-)  I gotta ask, does it get any better than this?!??

Aug 11, 2000:    Greeting folks, it's Friday....for most of us, it's time to celebrate and rejoice for the week will end and we'll get two glorious days off into which we try to cram all the things we find enjoyable into. Yea, it's not a lot of time to fit all yer fun into, but somehow over the years, the powers that be decided that two days off was plenty! Too bad they didn't figure out that three days off was the bare minimum, that would be another 50 or so fishing days a year. ;-) This past week was interesting around here, there's been some very lively and productive debate on , more so than usual. The hottest topics, as they usually are, concern about the striper resource. What could better get folks stirred up than when they are forced to contemplate the future of the most popular inshore gamefish in the entire north east? I've long been of the mindset that we are not living in the fantasy world of a "recovered" fishery, that's just what the people who want to kill 20-30 millions pounds of them for sale each year would have you believe. I won't get started here on the main page, but I will say that, in my humble opinion, a recovered fishery would be one that consisted of a "natural" percentage of each size/year class being represented. I'm not sure of that natural percentage split, but for example, a certain percentage over 40", a certain percentage 39"-28", and a certain percentage below 28".  Whatever those numbers should be, I'm sure they are heavily out of whack now favoring the below 28" sizes. My guess is bigger fish get stuck in more net sizes, they die. 

   Also this week, we got the PowerPro deal all worked out and received our first delivery, see the PowerPro Page as it's now part of the growing catalog! In the past, we tried Power Pro, it was their first lines, probably 3 years ago or more...and we didn't like it. Through the constant urging and many positive user experiences with the new Power Pro, we decided to order some and check it out. While I haven't spooled up with it yet (maybe for tonight's trip) inspection of the line was certainly eye opening! It's not the same line that we didn't like previously, it's much tighter and much more uniform...to say the least, we are optimistic that it will perform well. Besides that fact, recent (very sad) news is that Berkley is going to discontinue the 20# and 30# Whiplash! This will leave a great void in my fishing arsenal and I am hopeful that the new Power Pro line can fill this void. I'll still use the 50# and 65#  Whiplash and I'll use every drop of the 20# and 30# I can find, but once the lighter ones are gone, I'll be shopping for a new surf braid, fingers crossed that the Power Pro is the answer! It's very close to Whiplash from an inspection point of view, I'll put a spool on my Sustain tonight and get some kind of experience with it...hopefully, get something LARGE to spin the spool some! Also this week, I was made aware that folks couldn't find the 9" Slugg-O's on the site...and upon looking into it, it was true! I have them on the same page as the Fin-S-Fish, but there is very little mention of the big Slugg-O's there! Recently, some folks are finding out what great tools these 9" plastic baits are...we've known for some time as we've used them for jig trailers a lot...but the recent discovery of these weapons by many folks has put them way up there in popularity. RichR has recently been scoring in CT with them rigged with just a big 8/0 hook, taking a 30# striper and some in the 20# class...even out fishing his buddies who were using live eels! This is a major breakthrough, Slugg-O's don't need oxygen, won't rot in the sun, and they don't stink when you forget one in your truck! ;-) Way to go Rich! One more major occurrence this past week is the beginning of the much awaited exodus from Raritan Bay by this years bumper crop of peanut bunker!?!?! Peanut bunker are just a local nickname for the baby bunker, from 1" to 5" long...they are a delicacy to nearly every gamefish on the coast, from fluke to alba-turkeys, they all love peanuts! With these tasty baits in the surf, it's now time to break out the wood! All those swimmers, all those poppers...dust 'em off, it's time to get 'em wet. If you don't have 'em yet, you can load up on here, the Lex Lures line offers every sort of wooden lure you'll need to get in on this action...and until Tony tells me otherwise, we're still the only place on earth with the "Buy 5, get 1 free" deal currently going on! Yup, buy any 5 Lex Lures, get any 1oz Lex for free....popper, stumpy needlefish, swimmer, whatever, you get it for free! I don't know when this is going to end, Tony hasn't told me yet....could be tomorrow, could be 2 months, I'll let you know as soon as he pulls the plug!  

   One more big change this week, possibly the best of the biggest changes...even besides the fact that we've upgraded  to the most current version and are now adding tons of new cool features to it....it's the addition of the newest and arguably, most useful page on StripersOnline! It's only just starting, it's not even current yet, but I'll let you peek at it anyway, it's the new Update History page...doesn't sound like much, does it? ;-) It really will be, there are many hundreds of pages on StripersOnline, they are updated almost constantly but in no particular order. I was recently informed in the old suggestion box by JoeA that it's nearly impossible to check all the pages and see what's new, why not make a page that lists all the pages that were recently update? What an idea?!?! So we did, here it is in it's unfinished form, the Update History page, a one stop spot where you will be made aware of all the changes to the site since the last time you were here! So simple, such a great idea, many thanks to JoeA!

  One last thing, we've also recently added a Kayaker's Forum on  to be moderated by our friend JonS...it was his suggestion so we figured who'd be better to moderate there? ;-) Kayaks are becoming more and more popular as fishing vehicles, they are certainly a unique and interesting way to solve some fishing problems....both Charlie and I now own them, many other friends are either owners or are shopping...so what better place to find out more about them and share with others who have more experience that right here!?!  So, another new forum is born, there are sure to be more along the way, it just seems so natural.....

Sincerely,

Tim Surgent