Yesterday I got a phone call that made it difficult for me not to bag all I was doing and heading out the door. Actually, I got 3 phone calls, all of who's intent it was to either drive me nuts or drag me fishing....I would like to thank all of them for trying, keep at it, I usually don't last long in my efforts to say no to breaking stripers. I did manage to complete the day at work, I even got a little caught up on things that have been "losing" out to fishing. One phone call in particular bothered me, on the other end of the line, this mild manner guy I know was sounding all flustered, like a school girl....I was listening intently. I picked up a note card, scribbled gibberish as he rattled off details...thanked him and now had to finish the day not only knowing that there were breaking stripers practically coast-wide and all day long, but that there were some LARGE out there at night....I was beginning to weaken. I put the note card aside, thought what I would need to get yesterday in order to be better prepared should I undertake the place that was mentioned...and got back to work.

Now it's dark, I have made the decision, Charlie and I ready a few things and pack up the Explorer...we're heading south to absolutely uncharted waters in my book...a place I have never been, only seen from afar, yet heard about enough times over the years to know that at such places, things can happen on a LARGE scale. Again, I apologize for being a little vague as to the location, the names are changed to protect the innocent (not only that, if I start blabbing, the phone will stop ringing!) It's substantially south of Belmar. We took the drive, got a little lost due to directions that were just a tad too vague at a critical spot, but made it there in one piece...I could even sense the excitement in Charlie when we started to survey the place, it just looked like one of those places. We geared up, and we began our adventure on rocks I have never set foot on before...previously, I thought that I had stepped on all the useful ones, but that has since been proven to not be true.

We fished hard, it was cold, but it wasn't windy. An hour and a half after beginning to cast, with not so much as a bump to keep us going, Charlie hooked a little fish on a rigged eel. You gotta understand the anticipation, we've heard about big fish here for years, that first hit, if at all solid, your mind starts to weigh the fish before you even haul back...at least mine does! It's a small fish, but welcome after no action at all...then that's it...for about another hour....the only reason why we even stayed there for that long is that the place is new, I had to made some mental notes about the current at different stages of the tide, so I was learning as much as I was fishing....learning about the bottom, the rips, the back eddies, the bait...trying to get a general feel for the place...the feel I was getting was making me a little giddy as well, all the things that needed to be there appeared to be in place. I finally get a hit...I had been through darters, rigged eels, the hybrid jigs, bombers, and plain Smilin' Bill jigs....but the first cast when the Smilin' Bill was sporting a pig skin, I got bit! Not a big fish, a legal one, but it was welcomed, unhooked, thanked, and released. Next cast, I missed a good shot. Then I stuck a trout, but it shook off scant feet from the jetty, where it would have been released anyway, it just saved my fingers from getting that much colder. About 20 minutes later, I stuck a real nice fish...I could tell be the way it was shaking it's head and slowly moving away from me against a drag set to not give any line without exacting a toll on the thing pulling...10 seconds, tops...it comes unbuttoned! Just like that, now I'm there, now I'm gone...a 7/0 hook...the pig skin had gotten around in front of the hook before I set on the fish, and the 7/0 had gotten through the pig just enough to hang the fish, not enough to bury the barb...oh well, there's other fish, that one got away fair and square, no failure on my part...I was eager now to continue. Another hour in the same spot, not a hit, not a bump, not a fish. It's strange how that happens, sometimes it eludes me, for I'm sure it's a response to some change in some condition somewhere that cannot be equated in human terms...everything was apparently exactly the same to me, but now the water was dead. Time to fish back...

A bit closer to shore, Charlie is reeling the broken end of his braid, he got stuck out there a bit, and busted off...he's not happy when he's not catching fish but still losing stuff...he doesn't bother to re-rig, yawns, and says "Let's bail." I grudgingly agree, yet intend to poke around a couple spots that got my attention on the way out...just a quick shot or two. Now, we had been out here, in the cold for nearly 3 1/2 hours, with each of landing a fish and missing a couple...and it wasn't getting any better...but you could feel it...the critters had to be around, it just looked right, it felt right....but many times those feeling are just the eternal optimism within getting the upper hand as my sanity slips in the middle of a freezing cold night. I take a cast in three spots on the way back, not a sniff. We stop about 60% of the way back to the truck to jabber for a second about something...and I hear it...it's very faint, winds at my back...but I definitely hear something. I struggle to put a mental picture to the noise I am hearing, but I cannot remove the noise from all the surrounding noises...but I hear something and it's got my complete attention. It's bunker, big bunker, and they ain't playin'! Way too far off to reach, I put on a 2oz Smilin' Bill and settle for casting closer to them than to me...and I get bit on the first cast, a scrappy good sized short who was glad to be back in the water once I was done with him, as the air was in the low 30's. Charlie's got his leader in his hand now, debating rigging up or not...and I stick another one, a keeper...it too, is released. Now Charlie's into his jig bag, something's going on here, and after so many hours in the cold, the mind needs to feel the hunt was successful in order to not put this place or this night into the big pile in the back of everyone's mind labeled "one of those nights." I don't think his jig had completely landed, when he sticks a decent fish...it's landed, a fat 12-13# fish....I lifted it up and handed it to Charlie, who was previously getting a little cranky with the cold, fishless hours we had now just ended, and he says "I needed that." He did...back to his old self, he's joking and laughing, loads of unicorn talk...that's the Charlie I prefer to fish with. I had again stuck a fish, landed it, and released it...near legal. This continued, a hit on nearly every cast, for about 45 minutes...than it shut down...no visible changes in current or conditions...the last cast was welcomed by a fish, as were many immediately prior to it, then nothing...not another hit even though I tried a couple things I thought would surely move but one more...it was not to be. We had salvaged a 2 fish night, turned it into a 25 fish night, with a good number being 10-13#...and one about 17-18# I managed to coax to the small SB jig....and I lost what I'm guessing was my 30# I was there for. We had stumbled onto these fish simply by stopping to chat about something...I still don't remember what it was, it may have been something we passed on the jetty, or cold hands...or the need for a warm cup of coffee, it's really not important what it was, but it saved our night. It was the stopping that was key, as the noisy cleats on rocks certainly drown out those faint noises that have saved hundreds of nights for me.

Today I will get the jig pages up, I have been trying lately, but haven't been able to get happy with them...I will post them anyway. I put up some more photo pages yesterday, and on my desk is the package I have been waiting for...I got MikeP pictures! I'll get the all up soon, I swear!

Sincerely,

Tim Surgent

I cannot believe in my haste to put this page up that I forgot what day it is! This is the day that all of us who have never had to go to war for our country NEED to remember all those who have! It's only because of these men that we have the freedoms to say what we what, live where we want, and, to a degree, do what we want to do. The thought of fighting for my life is a scary thought that was made reality for millions of young men through all the wars this country has suffered through, these brave men deserve out utmost respect and certainly deserve to be remembered not only on this day, but each time you enjoy the freedoms that so many had to die for. I apologize for this oversight, there's no excuse.

I learned a lesson last night, or should I say, I relearned a lesson that we all have been taught at some point...possibly many points in our lives. The lesson I learned was that the more frustrated you become, the more difficult the task at hand likewise becomes. This is far from just being a "fishing rule", but it is certainly magnified and obvious in our fishing endeavors. I know this as the vast majority of the time, I am reminding other fishermen that the best thing to do is to relax, don't get frustrated...while they are fuming, line all over, angry, stomping their feet...I see a lot of people get frustrated like this. Last night, it was my turn...and much as I know better, I let myself slide deeper into the trap of frustration! It was odd, it didn't start right away, but I did feel it welling up almost as soon as I got my first frustrating little backlash last night...nothing big, just two little picks and it was free....but inside it felt like a big deal...this was new to me, backlashes are part of fishing, why would I let something that I expect to happen bother me? I really didn't get it, but in our ladies collective defenses, I might hazard to say that this is a similar thing to PMS....without the cramps! It just built, I was getting 10 times the backlashes as a normal night, I busted off lures when I shouldn't have, I missed hits I should have hooked, I said things and acted like I shouldn't have...I was just being a baby...and the more of a baby I was being, the deeper it got. Oh well, I got over it at some point, I don't know when, but I was thankful when this funk was gone, it's not a pleasant thing to be fishing and have that kind of attitude. I think sometimes God let's us feel these things so that in the future we will be better able to understand and show compassion for a fellow going through the same thing, for it is much easier to understand how someone's feeling when you have recently been reminded how it feels. So much for that, I'm glad it's over!

The fishing last night was nothing spectacular, possibly due to my decreased attention span and easily aggravated nature...I do not know. Charlie easily out fished me last night, in all three measured categories...hits, fish landed, and size of fish landed. I had about 4 fish, 1 keeper (released), while Charlie had maybe 10 fish, 1 about 17# (released), and another keeper (released). We did have a lot of hits, I did manage to shine briefly and stuck two pretty good fish, both of which got away....just one of those nights for me. My wife recently came home from teaching 4th graders one day this week impressed by the outlook of one of her 10 year olds. He was having a bad day, she tried to console him, he said to her that "sometimes when you are having a bad day, it's best to just have the it be bad and not try to fix it"...I could certainly relate! Charlie had the bigger fish on a yellow Gibb's Darter, he lost a bigger one on a 1oz Black Gibb's bottle...all the rest were caught, as per usual, on jigs. We even bought live eels with us, as this time of year you can get into some real big fish with live eels...maybe that's what was wrong with me, my inner man was not happy with me that I was slinging meat! :) Not a touch on the eels, all on jigs for me, each hit. I missed an extraordinary amount of hits, probably 80% of my hits were either missed or the fish lost...far above average...again, the frustration thing.

The conditions last night were excellent, we had a SSW wind, maybe 12kts, good chop where we were fishing, and bait moving around the whole time out. The fish were certainly not being normal, something was up with them...maybe they were feeling a little like I was, who knows.

At some point last night, I got analytical about the many backlashes I was getting, I believe it was a combination of a loose spool of braid after fishing eels, being frustrated, and possibly the "extra" part that I left out of my Mag Elite when I last thoroughly cleaned it. I rely on this rod, when I am fishing anywhere big fish are likely, it is the only rod I will put in the truck, and last night, it felt like a stranger...I must figure out where that little tiny copper washer goes today, I like to feel in synch with this outfit, and last night, I was far from it.

There are some heavy fish around folks, none for me, but I've heard of a few 40's in the past 48 hours, some on eels, some on nuts, but they are moving around. The fish are funny, sometimes they are in the bunker and feeding hard, sometimes they aren't. The bunker will likely die by the millions today and tonight as the NE wind that is predicted comes to fruition, there will be good bites in some locals..possibly many locals. It's blowing NNE right now, the waves are at the 4 foot mark, and I'm sure, right now, someone is as frustrated as I was last night. I hope I learned from that last night and will do my best to not repeat last nights performance! I hope all of you can get out soon, the fishing is pretty good, the wind is blowing the right way, and maybe you'll all stick a LARGE! I hope to hang one tonight as soon as I get that "extra" part snuggled back into my old friend, the Mag Elite.

Again, thanks for everyone's continued positive feed back on the site, keep the suggestions, pictures, and orders coming!

Sincerely,

Tim Surgent