Time Flies…  

So, where have I been all this time? Rumors that I have stopped fishing are false. Here is the nutshell version of my life since the last article I wrote for this site: new house, new boat, new job, no more fiance, no more house, another new house, new girlfriend, big promotion at new job. Now I know some of you may be thinking "new boat" is related to "no more fiance", but it isn't. And that brings us up to the past weekend, where I finally got out to do a little fishing.  

On To the Fishing  

After speaking with my father and brother Friday night about Saturday morning's game plan, we decided we would try clamming for bass down by Barnegat Inlet. Meeting time was 6:00 in Seaside. In the morning, after taking a little time trying to figure out how to get my fishing rods in the little convertible commuter car I use during the week (without putting the top down since it looked like it was going to rain), I got to my parent’s house at 6:30. Why not just take my truck? It's in the shop. Anyway, the weather still looks a bit sketchy, but we decide to go for it anyway. The wind was up much stronger than what was called for, but we had the option to turn around if we chose.   We transfer my stuff to Dad's truck, and stop at Grumpy’s B&T in Seaside for, dare I say it, bait. They had fresh bunker, brought in the day prior, and live clams. Two baker’s dozen clams, and 4 fresh bunks and we were off.   The wind was coming from the SW when we left, and we thought the ride down the bay would be less than ideal. It wasn't’t so bad though. My brother was at the wheel and he trimmed our Steiger Craft out to handle the conditions. We worked our way through Oyster Creek Channel and looked for a spot to anchor where Oyster Creek and Double Creek meet. We didn't have our depth finder (it's in the shop too), so we had to guess by the rips whether we were in a hole or not. I was in charge of dropping the anchor, so I paid attention to when the anchor hit bottom. Our first attempt was pretty deep, but it left us too close to a couple of other boats when we let out enough line to safely hold bottom. We moved up a little, and out second drop was much shallower. We got hooked up and gave it shot anyway. Dad started shucking and dicing clams while I started tying rigs.

When all three rods were ready, we threw two rods out away from the boat, and dropped one straight down, all baited with clam. I'd say it was 7:15 or so.    

Clam Balling Can Be Boring  

I spent the next hour or so tossing little bits of clam as far up current as I could. I would have much rather been working lures, but you do what you have to do. In the meantime, I called a friend to see if he was out and get some updated reports.  

Or not…  

Around 8:30 , the rod in front of me bent over and then the clicker started going off. I was still tossing bits of clam overboard, so my hands were a bit slimy. However, my father told me to grab the rod, and who am I to argue? I set up on the fish and looked down at a reel that was dumping line like I had a tuna on. I was down into line that had not seen the light of day since the reel was spooled very quickly. We back off on the drags after every trip, and it seems this one was not reset before being put out. Add my clam coated hands and I was having a heck of a time with this fish. I tightened up the drag as much as I dared, and I did not dare too much, and thumbed the spool. I would have burned my thumb on the line had it not been for the clam juice. At least that was serving some sort of purpose.   With an assist from my brother Jamie and a rag, I declammed and began to work the fish in. After a few minutes, I got it to the boat and Jamie netted it in one swipe. We measured it out at 36", I removed the hook, Jamie snapped a picture with my cell phone, and I revived it. It took what felt like a minute or two of holding it in the current for it to clamp down on my thumb. It was actually more like 30 seconds most likely. I held on until the fish gave a swat with its tail, and then let go. It swam away strong.   Knowing the bass were around, we dropped down a bunker head to see if we can get a big one. I diced up the tail section of the bunker to sweeten our chum slick.   A little while later Dad landed a skate. We neglected to take his picture.  The next fish was also Dad's. It was a blue of around 8 pounds. Jamie grabbed the leader to pull it aboard and the line broke where the teeth were wearing through. Just as that was happening, another rod goes down. I grab it, set up on the fish, and ask Jamie if he wants it. At first, I think he was going to say no, but he says yes and I hand off the rod. Jamie fights the fish to the boat, but I don't do as well netting it. It takes me more than one attempt, but I get the fish in the net and on board. This one hits the tape at 32", but is hooked deep in the tissue under the tongue. It's bleeding, so we keep it. It probably would have survived the wound, but it was taking me a while to get the hook out, a task which I gave up on when we decided to keep it. I wasn't sure the fish could have been revived.

Wrapping Up  

That was our last fish, and came at 10:00 . The sun came out not soon afterwards. I'm not sure if the declining current speed or the sun was the culprit, but the little bit of action we had stopped. We kept at it until 11:30 when the current completely stopped.   There must have been a lot of small blues around because they were tearing up the bunker baits we put down. We saw a couple of fish caught on the two center consoles behind us. Not sure what they were, they could have been bass or blues. A boat ahead of us got a skate and that is all I noticed was caught.   We stopped back at Grumpy's to log in Jamie’s fish. It weighed 12 pounds. All in all, it was a slow day on the water, but we were rewarded for our patience by a couple of fish and a little excitement. Not bad for a windy, rainy morning.

Ok, now where’s that shiny new hat?