December 2000 Striped Bass Surf Fishing Archives

The Toggin' Trip

December 6, 2000:

Tell ya one thing yesterday reminded me...I don't like fishing with bait! It's not that I don't like people that do, it's not that I don't like catching fish with bait, I hate bait fishing cause of what it does to you, your clothes, your tackle, and your hands! Yikes!?! My hand were covered in crab internals, my outer layers covered in tog blood and crab parts...it's a messy method of fishing. Too bad tog don't like jigs, I'd rather catch 'em that way for sure. Let's go over the events some. Monday night, Crazy Alberto made his way to my house...I say "made his way" cause he called me from the Belt Parkway at 11pm to inform me that it was a dead stop, a parking lot, not moving at all. I told him to enjoy his coffee and let me know when he was underway again. As fate would have it, his directions blew out the window, so he'd call me each time he got to one of them decisions on the way south...but eventually, he made it...I'm guessing some time around 1am. As we were chattin' about things, lots of things, Paul Naj stops over on his way home from braving the cold...just in time to tell of us his dismal failures in the suds. The last two guys alive to be put off by such a bad fishing report would be Alberto and I, plans still in tact for some unicorn hunting in the dark before the planned tog trip in the am. Just as Paul, Al, and I were settling into a game of Fuzzy Mouse with Calvin the watch cat, Dubs stops over on his way home from work. My neighbors must wonder...few houses are so active at 2am on a Monday night ;-) My lovely wife handles the guests the way I would expect any sane wife to do at 2am...she stayed in bed! Not 100% true, she did come say hi to Alberto, everyone else she already knows. What a wonderful wife I have, most would probably have screeched and complained of the noise and flipped out with people coming over at 2am, not mine...she's a saint ;-) So, Calvin grows weary of the Fuzzy Mouse even though Alberto's still trying to get one more "hit" from the kitty by really workin' the Fuzzy Mouse....Paul and Dubs both excuse themselves as they are just plain weary...and I'm gearing up for our trip to the suds.

Al and I took the scenic route along the beach to our destination...and Alberto's quite interested in these new waters. As we grab our stuff and make our way out to the first of our two spots, it's noted just how nice 26 degrees is when there's no wind. We spent about 1 1/2hrs at the first place...mainly because we could see birds in the distance sitting on the water...and occasionally, a splash. Unfortunately, a 3-4 foot swell made reaching the action impossible...and the few casts that did reach them went unmolested. Al had one shot on a jig....can't give you any more details on the jig, he's got some secrets...or so he thinks ;-) The problem with this kind of fishing is that the water, tide, and weather were absolutely ideal for a serious striper bite...both Al and I knew it...and it's hard to walk away from what should be the perfect spot! We eventually did...and the second spot looked even better! Nothing, not a hit there, and we threw everything - jigs, needlefish, bombers, Yo-zuris, MegaBaits, and rigged rubber eels....and every form of teaser known to man. Not a touch, certainly a surprise to the both of us, it just looked/felt so "right!" Much as I'm accustomed to with the Crazy one, he was eye balling a couple other spots and asked me which we should do first! Yikes!?! I'm ready to head back and gear up for the tog, Al's got two more striper spots he wants throw stuff...I convince him that it's late, nearly 5 am...and we gotta meet the fellers at 6am at Pat's Diner for some pre-tog breakfast! He reluctantly agrees. One thing about Al that I both admire and share, that inability to get discouraged! No amount of fishless casts is gonna make either one of us believe that there's not fish to be caught, we figure we're just either in the wrong spot or we're doing something wrong...eternally and painfully optimistic for sure...and no doubt, a sign of serious illness! ;-)

6:10am, we're at Pat's, we met up with Cowhunter in the parking lot...gotta love the Cowhunter, he's always got a plan! ;-) As we drank coffee and devoured our eggs/home fries, Cowhunter's telling us all his plans for the 2001 season! The guy's got all his vacations planned, all his moon phases figured out, already decided where and when he's gonna be for almost every day he has off in 2001! Me? I'm still not sure where I'm fishing next time I go out...like I said, you gotta love Cowhunter ;-) Talk about eternal optimism? Put Al, Cowhunter, and myself together....you'd be hard pressed to find a crew with more optimism than that....given the chance, we'd three likely fish 24 X 7 and never complain and never quit. It's a dangerous concoction, probably best that we all live an hour or more away from each other!

Fast forward some (getting to be a long page! ;-) Now we're togging...beautiful day, nice water....and the tog, while mostly smaller, were keeping us all amused. The SOL crew: Crazy Al, MikeY, MichaelP, Richie, Cowhunter, and myself...there's another guy on the charter that wasn't part of our crew...while he was a nice guy, I'm still wondering how this happened...I thought a charter was just that, you paid for the boat and you got to fish the whole boat with your crew. No big deal, like I said, he was a nice guy. Crazy Al, much as we all expected, was tearin' into the togs...I think it's his method of talking them...and talking to the bait...I'm not sure, bottom line was Al knows his tog! ;-) Cowhunter was having issues at first, using mono was my guess ;-) But once he got 'em figured, he was landing some beauties right along with Al and myself on one side of the boat! While I wasn't landing loads of tog, my percentage of "keeper" sized togs was impressive...at least to me it was ;-) Al had 42 tog all together...I landed 15 or so...but of Al's 42, 11 were keepers...of my 15, 6 were keepers. While I might not of had the knack for hooking all the tog bites, I was at least stickin' the ones that counted ;-) MikeY, MichaelP, and Richie were working the other half of the boat and while I wasn't able to keep track of their numbers, I did note that they had their rods bent very frequently! Lots of time I did hear the words "cookie cutter" referring to that one 12" tog that they seemed to be taking turns releasing ;-) In the end, we all had lots of tog, we all had a decent number of keepers, and we all had a very good time. On the way back, we spent exactly 4 minutes in a Chinese fire drill of trying to jig up a couple stripers as Cap't Ray reluctantly (he had to be somewhere in north Jersey in a few hours) agreed to let us throw stuff at the schools of breaking small stripers we were driving right past. The drift was ferocious, my one jig too light to hit bottom...the other too big for the tiny stripers to eat...but they were trying! Most of the guys that put a jig in the water landed at least one tiny striper...the few shad landed were far bigger...Cowhunter managed 3 little stripers in those couple minutes...I got not a one, but did have my 4 1/2oz jig batted around a good bit! After we pried Al away from the breaking fish, distracting him with a bag of pretzels MikeY bought along, we were headed home again. It was a very good trip, we all had a great time...and in the end, the pool money went home in my pocket :-D

Back to the non-existent night fishing. That was for us...and that was in the dark. From the many emails/phone calls I've been getting, there's a pretty reliable day bite been goin' on nearly everyday for many miles of the suds.....don't ask me where, it wouldn't be fair to try and tell ya where to go, the fish are moving all over and any spot from IBSP to Sandy Hook would likely be a great place to start! Poppers...jigs...wood...plastic...flies...it doesn't seem to matter. The downside? The fish are, for the most part, very small. Sure, there's some decent ones in there, but you gotta either be lucky enough to catch one of the bigger guys...or skilled enough to pluck a few bigger guys outta the schools. Me? I'll again pass on the day fishing still....too much to do, too many guys, and the small fish lose their appeal among masses of people all trying to cast to the same spot for me. I'll stick with the freezing cold, blowing winds, and, currently, fishless nights. I just like the fishing part, catching them just makes yer hands colder ;-)

Sincerely,

Tim Surgent