TR: The Jersey Shore (long)

Just a post collecting some thoughts from last year. Certainly won't
win any awards but hey, this is ROFF.

Getting Blitzed!

Driving east along Rt. 36, the sun was shining in my eyes so on go the
glasses. Hmmm, took a little too long getting out this morning, but I
heard good things happening down at the surf. So ok, Fall is when the
blitzing starts, right? Well, up to this point I had never seen a
blitz in the surf. Not really. I'd seen folks reeling in little
cocktails one after another right at sunset. I'd been out in a boat in
a mile wide school of blues, reeling them in for hours until my arms
ached. But never with stripers. Stripers!

Apparently everyone except for me knows about how stripers declined
for years and have been making a steady comeback since the various
regulations have been in place. But being a Johnny-come-lately to the
fishing scene, and fly fishing in the salt specifically, this is good
news. There are so many stripers around nowadays, that virtually
anybody can catch one. So they say. Well, admittedly I had caught a
couple, but not "on my own". I caught my first (and to date largest)
striper with my brother-in-law on his boat live-lining bait. That fish
was the largest fish I had ever caught to that point in my life…
coming in at 15 lbs. 35". But when you're fishing on a boat, using
bait supplied by the boat, using tackle supplied by the boat, it
hardly qualifies as your "own", ya know? Anyhow, anybody can catch a
striper nowadays, they say.

So my coworker harangues me about getting into sal****er fly fishing.
He knows I fish for trout, but I've "got" to try fly fishing in the
salt. Well, my trout season was doing well, and now we were into the
days when trout should pretty much be left alone around here. You know
80F+ weather, warmer water temps. Ok, I go with him to gear up,
getting a starter rig that still leaves $300 or so in the fly shop…
actually not bad for a soup to nuts setup… a few casting lessons, and
then an on water lesson with him. A few clunks in the head with
jiggies and clousers, some corrected casting practice, some experience
with intermediate sink lines and how to roll-cast them to the surface
before going into the full back cast, and I'm officially launched into
the world of fly fishing in sal****er.

But where are the fish? My coworker seems to disappear into his own
busy schedule, but I've got this gear and I want to get a fish. Hmmm
what to do? I purchased Ed Mitchell's book "Fly Rodding The Coast" and
he certainly gives some great instruction. But what about locally,
where do I go? I find another book "Fishing the New Jersey Coast" by
local guide Jim Freda and finally get some good tips. So I start
hitting spots in the "bayshore" area of Monmouth county. These are
older communities along the Northern Monmouth County coast with
various beaches allowing access to the waters. I hit various estuaries
throughout the few weeks remaining in the summer. But I never did find
any fish. Oh well, have to get a guide and get out on a boat to find
out how to do this.

But going down to the ocean beaches Sunday evenings with the wife and
daughter, I brought along my gear just in case one of those alleged
blitzes happened. Nothing doing. However there was one monumental
event that changed how I view the ocean once and for all. It was now
the last Sunday in August and I had read about these runs of baitfish
called Mullet. Around these parts the Mullet are usually about the
sizes of small ears of corn and are sometimes called corn cob mullet
(duh!) or a bit smaller…the size of large fingers and hence called,
uh, finger mullet. While sitting on the sand, scanning the water near
a very small outcropping of rocks we call a jetty (technically a
groin, but in its present state a small shadow of the long jetties
extending out from Monmouth county's shoreline after the Army Corp of
Engineer's last attempt at solving the erosion problems) there was a
small set of riffles, or nervous water, that would move, grow and
shrink. Definitely worth investigating, so the gear gets assembled and
down to the water I go. Confident? No way. But tying on a 3 inch blue
and white deceiver I had tied up, casting (if what I do is to be
called casting) and strip retrieves. Repeat. Now mind you, up to this
point I have not hooked a fish from the surf in over 20 years. Back
then it was flounder using squid. Here I am with my fancy fly rod
(humble entry level stuff though it may be) and my daughter and wife
thinking that I'm just in phase X of my mid-life crisis.

Cast, strip, strip, strip. Cast, strip, strip, strip. Not sure if
anything will happen, but by golly, when I cast, I see these mullet
dancing out of the way of my fly line. The bait is here all right.
Cast, strip, strip, I watch my line tumble to shore with each incoming
wave. I try to time (as I've been told) my casts to reach the sloughs
in between each wave, but the waves eventually catch up anyway. Strip,
strip, strip, my line is in the shallows, my fly maybe 20 feet away
when I see a body, then tail flip over my fly and TUG! Aghhhh, fish
on! The ensuing battle lasted for about 10 minutes, with line being
stripped out, retrieved, and a fish some 25" or longer rolling in 4"
of water, ready to come to hand when, with one more powerful roll of
the body and flip of the tail, it was off, free, and gone! Ah, but the
feeling of a fish on in the surf…nothing like it.

So, here I am on a crisp September morning, heading to check out the
water again.
Are the mullet still around? Not sure as I haven't read anything on
the local boards, and hadn't seen anything like that nervous water
from that Sunday evening. The sunrises on the East Coast of the United
States are breathtaking. Even if you miss those first few rays, the
sun glistening and sparkling on every ripple, every roll of the water
is just gorgeous. Just don't look behind you as Long Branch still has
a way to go in its "redevelopment". I still expect this to be like
other mornings, where I go down to my favorite drive-up spot, take a
look at nothing happening, rig up, cast for a bit, and head to work.
All in all not a bad way to get the day started.

When I pull up, I see angler's vehicles parked around, rig up, head
down to the same rocks as that time in late August. This time anglers
are down beach, clearly agitated about something. Birds are working,
fish are breaking. I go up beach to a spot by myself and tie on a
peanut bunker pattern. The surf was very calm as the wind was out of
the west for a quite a while already. As I'm looking at the gentle
waves rolling up, the sun glinting off the surface ripples and through
the curling water, I saw the most amazing thing of my angling life.
Clouds of fish about the size of my thumb rolled up and down, in and
out with each wave. Openings between these clouds were filled by fish
the size of my leg, silhouetted against the deep azure green of the
ocean water within the wave with beams of sunlight streaming all
around.

I began casting, each cast laid out on the water, stripped in, until
the pile of coils filled my stripping basket, and I cast and repeat. I
didn't notice when they arrived, but after a while I realized I was
surrounded by other anglers, all with spinning gear. Thankfully they
were giving me just enough room to cast. The wind and waves also
cooperated to allow all to access the fish hitting the surf up and
down this stretch of beach. I also realized that no one around me was
catching anything. An acquaintance of mine was using storm shads,
others were using poppers, some were using small swimmers, others big
swimmers, and I with my streamers.

Waves of peanut bunker up and down, fish splashing out in the surf,
huge bodies coming in and out with the waves. It was piscatorial
bedlam. I then heard an angler to my right yell ‘Fish on!" and looked
and saw one gentleman (and so he acted) with a fish on, noticing his
red and white swimming lure, he released that fish, having already
landed one for his limit. He was the only one who caught anything
around me. I saw other anglers reeling in red and white poppers as
fast as they could. Everytime they popped and reeled, a fish would
break the surface right behind their popper. Hmmm, perhaps they should
slow down? (answer – yes… noted that for another day).

I changed my fly to a wider profile fly with a nice red tag, and full
doll-eyes… sort of a mullet pattern. Next cast: fish on! The fight,
though exciting, was brief. It turned out it was a thin 20"-er, also
known as a ‘Rat'. But hey, first striper to hand on a fly rod! I held
it up to my friend and said ‘This is unbelievable!' and meant it! I
quickly released the little guy (or gal?) and cast some more, but
noticed the bait fish moving off shore, that is less visible in the
surf. The sun was rising, and this was still early in the fall.

The fish decided to move on a short time after that. It was the first
of many experiences to be had this particular fall at the Jersey
shore. My friend reminded me that this was only a "mini-blitz", and he
was right. But all in all this was the most amazing thing I had seen
or experienced while angling. Perhaps the first and only time I was
fishing Penns Creek near Coburn, PA and browns started rising all
around me. But I had already experienced rising trout, wild and
stocked, for years. This was new and though I didn't land a monster,
these fish have a beauty and strength in them no matter their size.

I went on into work that day, late, but no matter. I was able to just
stay longer and finish my work. But I did have a glow surrounding me
for the next few days. I was blitzed!


-- Rob from Tinton Falls, NJ

Rob S. wrote:

Just a post collecting some thoughts from last year. Certainly won't
win any awards but hey, this is ROFF


Thanks. I especially liked...


..
As I'm looking at the gentle
waves rolling up, the sun glinting off the surface ripples and through
the curling water, I saw the most amazing thing of my angling life.
Clouds of fish about the size of my thumb rolled up and down, in and
out with each wave. Openings between these clouds were filled by fish
the size of my leg, silhouetted against the deep azure green of the
ocean water within the wave with beams of sunlight streaming all
around.

I would have loved to have seen that.

Willi

I would have loved to have seen that.

Willi

Up to that point, I had never seen so many fish in one spot, in the wild, in my
life. And then seeing these stripers in and out of the waves, in between the
dark clouds of peanut bunker, it was amazing. Trying to get the stripers
attention turned out to be the problem, which was solved most easily by poppers
on the surface, or big attractors dragged slowly on the bottom, or if you could
find the edge of the clouds of bait, you could fish an attractor over there...
but I didn't discover any of this until later in the fall.

-- Rob