Weekend's done...fishing improving

Sept 18, 2000:

    Happy Monday folks, the weather certainly took a serious turn towards fall over this weekend, it was just 50 degrees on Saturday night when we wrapped up our fishing for that evening! 50 degrees at night, now that's some sweet temperature! Not hat weather yet, not glove weather either, but certainly waders and jackets. The fishing was pretty good (for me anyway ;-) on Friday night...and seriously slow on Saturday night. Watching mullet streak around on a bar Friday night was a nice thing to see....Paul landing a 15-17# beauty on a 5" Yo-zuri and the little 7ft St. Croix I loaned him was a bonus. Paul's hooked, he'll never look at the sand the same way, with these light rods, you can fish the smallest of lures and feel the lightest of taps...and each fish gives a great account of itself! Friday was an odd one, we started out about 10:30pm, Charlie, Paul and I...and as we were getting dressed, BrianZ saw our trucks and pulled up to say hello. I invited him along to plug some sand with us. My first fish was 26 1/2"...and after another 15 minutes, no others were landed....and as I was making my way over to tease Paul, I notice he's carrying a 34-35" fish towards me...rats! So much for that plan ;-) It was a nice fish, took my favorite colored Yo-zuri, it's called "purple" by Yo-zuri, but it's really sand eel with a purple tint to the top 1/3....bronze/purple would be a better name for it, I'm not even sure what I call it online here! Later, I would lose a nice one on the same plug, but for now, I'd continue throwing the MegaBaits and 5" Mambo minnows. This is where it gets a little weird. I had a fish knock my 4 1/2" silver shad MegaBait outta the water...the third time this happened that night...so I figured I'd like to get my plug and teaser down about a foot, make it easier for them to eat. Out comes my first use of the Suspending Crystal Minnow. I used it a few times on jetties to see how it fished...this was my first time on the sand. It fished incredibly well, in fact, I had 5 hits in 6 casts with it! No one else in the group was getting a touch, just me with the suspending lure. I converted two or three of those hits into beached fish, but I definitely noted their preference of these more subsurface minnows. BrianZ never really holds still that long so I've learned, he would be fishing 30 feet to my north...and then 15 minutes later he was 75 feet to my south...and in a half hour, I couldn't even see him! ;-) That's one way to cover the suds, just keep moving! Me, I prefer to fish through an area till I find something that interests me (good water, bait or bites) and then concentrate on that spot. Sometimes for too long, sometimes for just the right amount of time, but I will usually stay till I've gathered whatever knowledge I can from those conditions and fish...then I'll move on. The odd thing here was Charlie was pulling his hair out...yea, it happens to all of us, but Charlie wasn't even get bit, I had about 15 hits all together, Paul had a bunch of hits...BrianZ had some bites as well. Now poor Dubs was having all sorts of fits, not a touch! Finally, he put on his "go to" black Mambo minnow and even managed to stick one only to lose it in the surf! I was consoling him, having left my fishing spot to walk over and see what was up...only I ended up sticking one right in front of him, in his spot...so that didn't go over real well! ;-) After a bit, we all decided on some new scenery...and a little drive. The next spot, Paul had the only bass...but Charlie did manage to hook one for a bit before losing it, he felt better a little now! Paul and I targeted the midnight fluke for a couple minutes, put a few 16" plus fluke on the dirt, they ate MegaBait jigs and teasers...and Paul's cooler needs were now satisfied! BrianZ only stayed for a couple minutes, he walked about a mile of sand in that period, then notified us he was headed home so we said goodbye and wished him well.  Shortly after that, Paul bailed as well. Dubs and I decided to check out a jetty, the water was low, calm, and the moon was screaming...deeper water might be the answer. We figured we'd try first with the little rods we had in our hands before walking back and re-gearing with the bigger stuff. My first cast with a schoolbus surfster was met with a dead stop....some very violent head shakes, then a good run...I was into a decent fish on the front of a long jetty...but with my beach rod...I knew the outlook was bleak! I didn't even get the fish coming towards me when it shot south and tangled me up in some pilings...game over as the braid eventually busted! Rats, that's my only schoolbus surfster! Meanwhile, Charlie lands a short on the other side of the jetty on his first cast...looks to us like there's certainly cause for the bigger rods...we go and get 'em. 

    Should have guessed it, repeated casts for both of us in the same places we had each hooked fish 10 minutes ago went unmolested. Just when we thought the sucker fish had gotten to us, I got creamed in a little different spot and landed a nice 26" critter. Next cast, I hooked one that a went a bit wild and busted me off...bad knot, nicked leader, I'll never know! I re-rig, throw it in the same spot, and land another one! Charlie's digging for the right teaser (anything big, dark over white) and he finally gets clobbered but misses the hit. The fishing dries up as quick as it started and we move to another pile of rocks...all the while thinking how perfect the fly rods would have been there, better weapons that the spinning rods for sure! At the next spot, once again on this non-Dubs night, I find a patch of fish, land 2, break one off and miss a couple hits...Charlie gets two rat bastages! Geesh, some nights it just goes that way I guess! Poor Charlie has had it by now, we decided it's best to bail and try again a different night. All in all, like I said earlier, it was a good night - for me! ;-) I ended up landing 9 stripers, 4 flukes, 1 rat bastage blue....3 of the bass were over 28"...Charlie ended up with one bass landed, a few lost...and 3 blue devil rat bastages...Paul had the pool winner at an easy 15#'s and one other...I never found out how Brian did, he never held still all that long! ;-) There were a lot of hits, most of them around the high tide...and that was a change we hadn't expected.

  The table's set, things are going to be exploding from now till something serious changes. This upcoming storm, Gordon or something, will shake things up in a positive manner...at least till the water gets too dirty or weedy, but Gordon should be mild enough by the time we see it only positive fishing effects should be felt. Reports of daytime mullet/bunker/bass/blue/weak/albie blitzes are starting to show up in my email...it might be time for me to put on the sunglasses and sally forth in the daylight! Yes, even I can appreciate when all these critters get within fly rod range in the daylight! The bad thing is the boardwalk fishermen will start to become an increasing nuisance, lazy people waiting in their cars for someone else to find the fish....the best part of that is they are often seriously lacking in fishing skills from watching all these years instead of fishing...even when they get to where rods are being bent, they often just flail away in frustration....and given the chance, I'd suggest they fish more and watch less ;-) And we bumped into someone Saturday night...he was asking about parking...and then he asks if I was Tim and had a website....I said yes and he introduced himself as an SOL reader....so hello Bob, nice to meet ya!

     Make sure you check out the page, there's been some additions recently!

Sincerely,

Tim Surgent

Perfect conditions....lame fishing :(

Sept 20, 2000:

    Sometimes things just don't make sense! Last night the conditions were probably the most fishy I've seen in months, the 3-4 ft seas and light SW wind coupled with the rain tapering off to drizzle. It was one of those nights you just know the fish are crashing bait somewhere in the wash...but it wasn't meant to be. I had the pleasure of meeting another of our StripersOnline family, Charlie M, last night. I tell ya, I love to meet these guys who I've known "online" for so long, in person. It was a pleasure to throw stuff with Charlie for the first time...one thing I noticed, he throws conventional in the suds, even with the smaller lures! That takes some doing, I give him a lot of credit. So, the Prefessa, CharlieM, and myself were out to rack up some serious unicorn scores last night, no holds barred, 3 foot waves crashing onto the sand, the screaming E wind switched to a light SW, the pouring rain getting lighter and lighter...it just looked like the perfect night! After failing to even get a bump in the Fling Area in about 45 minutes, I knew we needed a new plan. I was a bit surprised there wasn't piles of fish intercepting our lures and teasers...but unshaken, we headed north. The second spot looked even better than the first and that spot has also been even more reliable than the first....again, not a touch, not a sniff, not even a suspected bump....about 40 minutes spent there. I mean I tried everything from Crystal minnows to darters to tin squids and bucktails...nada. Ditto the other guys, not a bump for them either. Needing a new plan, we head further north. We climb out on a jetty and begin again...same results, loads of casts, not a touch. On the way off the rocks, I fired a cast with a rigged eel right down the surf line and it got creamed, I was into the first of the unicorns for the evening! It wasn't big, but it was a fat migrator...there should be more I thought out loud. I did get one more shot there, but that was it, couldn't convert that light bump to a landed fish. Alright, let's try the sand on the way back to the vehicles. A few casts on the sand and I was in again....a longer but thinner fish...but a striped bass none the less! This one grabbed the red/white bucktail teaser that so many have fallen for lately. Then another light bump, failed to connect. We're all pretty toast by now, but what the heck, 75 feet away is a reliable little spot on the sand....we decide on 5 minutes there before heading home. A couple casts later, CharlieM hooks up! After a wrestling match in the surf, he lands the pool winner, I'm guessing about 9 or 10#'s worth...it too, fell for a red/white teaser fished above a rigged eel. That was it, a couple more casts and we called it quits for the night...all scratching our heads as to just why the fish weren't feeding like wild animals! 3 guys, 3 hours, 3 fish...that's what you'd expect on a flat, moonlit, low tide night...not a great looking, no moon, nice water, low pressure, in the rain kinda night! Oh well, I guess it could have been worse, at least the wily unicorn was encountered and subdued in the end...but it just shoulda been much better...at least in my head it shoulda! ;-)

   So thanks to the Prefessa and CharlieM for bailing me out last night on my dateless-ness! No matter how you slice it, it was the perfect night to be out there, it rained just hard enough, blew just hard enough, and was just rough enough....the fish would have just been an added bonus....

      Let's get registered for the as soon as you are certain you can attend! Accurate numbers will help in all facets of preparing for the Fling! Much as the rest of you, this is my busiest time of the year, fishing wise that is! I'll be taking an entire week of at some point very soon...prior to the Fling, it would be nice to be able to have a fairly accurate number of Flingers. No, it's not really that important that you register right now, but the sooner the better! I've got some more info for the Fling pages as to the locations we're planning to fish, but first I gotta get up the Hab's Needlefish and Gibb's bottles and darters....soon, very soon my friends! ;-)

   A LARGE box of Hab's Plugs showed up yesterday....I almost hate to part with these things! ;-) Man, what a job he does on his needlefish! I took the pictures for them and am editing them now. The needlefish come in 3 sizes, 1 1/2oz, 2oz, and 3 1/2oz....they are 5 1/4", 7 1/2", and a whopping 9" respectively. That's just the length of the wood...if you count the bucktailed X-strong VMC siwash hook, the 9" 3 1/2oz Needlefish is easily over a foot long! Talk about a perfect and tough finish...I was throwing a black/gray 1 1/2oz needlefish last night from a jetty...no hits prior to that last night...no, the black/gray needlefish wasn't the magic the fish were waiting for, but I did bang the lure around the rocks a few different times in the rough water...and when I gave it a close inspection afterwards, I couldn't even tell it had been fished! That's a toughness like no other wooden plug I've had the pleasure of throwing! Once on the phone with John (the maker of Hab's), he was telling me he tests his finishes on occasion by whacking the plug on the street to see how long it lasts...that's QC at it's highest! ;-) The pages for the Hab's Needlefish and the Gibb's darters and bottles will be finished today...but not if I keep on typing here! ;-)

Sincerely,

Tim Surgent

Falls coming....just add fish

 Sept 21, 2000:

   Last night we did something that isn't usually a part of our fishing...we went chasing someone else prior night's success. I've never been fond of that, preferring to follow the patterns we've been watching develop in our haunts...but 3 different folks gave me the nod about fishing some waters north of the Fling Zone. We went, not trying to hone in on someone else's gig, just looking around the areas we were pointed to...matter of fact, as it ends up, we didn't even fish any of the places we were pointed to. I dunno why, we just found some stuff in the neighborhood that looked right, so we tried it. The first spot we stopped was near an area old friend DaveC suggested we might noodle around some...not where he said, but the nearest area that I have any confidence in....we each missed one shot there in about a half hour.  Note made: fish move ;-) The second spot was a hunch, it was actually about midway between the two general areas of the positive reports. Right away, I was wrasslin' a runt rat bastage bluefish on the sand, he was determined to blind me by throwing sand in my eyes so he could then remove a fingertip or two...I know how them rat bastages think! I let him go...even after that stunt he pulled with the sand. Next cast, another, mirror image of the first...but much better behaved...I let him go, impressed at his self control while I removed my plug. A couple casts later, a third...same size...only this one got himself so tangled up with my plug...it was ugly I tell ya...there was no hope for him. Being inquisitive by nature, an autopsy was immediately performed...and I saw and learned something that is so beyond normal thinking that it will not be forgotten. Out of this 13" bluefish's stomach popper five 5" sandeels. Now that alone wouldn't be super strange...but 3 of them were entirely alive and not one of them showed any sign of bite marks! There wasn't a piece of sand eel missing, nor was there a piece of sand eel in it's stomach....five big sandeels, eaten whole, 3 very much alive. This was strange....not that I've done too many autopsies in my life time on fish this freshly dead, but I've not ever pictured a 1lb bluefish as a fish that would eat 5" sandeels in a manner that would leave them undamaged! Sure, a 15# bluefish with a gaping maw for a mouth could do it easily...this 1# bluefish would have had to inhale them like spaghetti to not cut them up. The significance of this breathtaking revelation?!?! Nothing...just thought you should know ;-) 

   What I did learn was that we are obviously enjoying the influence of good sized sand eels right here in our generally sand-eel free waters...this folks, is a very good thing. Any fall where we had numbers of sand eels in residence always proved to be extremely memorable. Sand eels are one of the very few baits that will produce a reliable repeating fishery...one where you can form patterns and expect to score on those patterns time and time again...often for up to 2 or 3 weeks! That makes it real nice if you want to introduce someone to surf fishing or just to plain show off by "knowing" where the fish are ;-) This hasn't happened.....yet....this year, but as long as we have sand eels taking up their station in the food chain here, it will happen. I'd trade every single daytime bunker/mullet blitz for the consistent and predictable fishing the sand eels can produce...every one of them! There's really nothing finer for imitating than a sand eel...long and thin, what could be easier? First, sand eels will interest the largest bass in the area...they must be quite tasty. Second, the fish will usually be predictable. Third, excellent dawn/dusk/night action. Fourth, they can stick around in an area, a small area, for a few weeks at a time! They make fly rodding opportunities where there were previously none...they cause us to dust off the needlefish that haven't seen action since 1998. Tune up them rigged rubber eels, I'll take mine in green Felmlee, please ;-)

   Oh, how was the fishing last night....pretty sad. Well, not really sad, we did get to meet RichS, which was our pleasure. The three of us all scored at least one unicorn in our hour together. Charlie and I each had one of 32"...Charlie swears his was bigger but it was quickly slipped back into the dark water before I could get an eyeball on it! I'll always be suspicious when ya do that! ;-) Rich got to see the magic Delta Sword...I loaned him my backup...he scored on it in minutes! I love them things! I scored my biggest bass last night on a small Delta Sword....compared to the sand eels I had just examined, the 4 3/8" DS was the most exact imitation I had. They ate it...I felt better knowing they finally did something like I figgered they would! So, it's time now to put the little Delta Swords on the site...I've had them here for a couple weeks now but wanted them to prove themselves useful before I put them in your hands. I'm planning on carrying the bigger ones soon...but for now, I've got the smaller ones, the sand eel sized ones, in stock. They do come in a very cool color, besides the natural and believable sand eel pattern I love, they have a very bright green/chartreuse (parrot) colored one! Nice.....

   Thanks to Brian Mulholland, he just submitted to us his second article! Brian's been a long time online buddy who I had the pleasure of meeting this spring on my very first Crazy Alberto adventure. Brian's been published in the Fisherman Magazine and I believe on a number of websites and we are proud to have some of his work here at StripersOnline! I'm looking forward to seeing Brian again at the possibly sooner!

   The Hab's Needlefish page is now up! To my embarrassment, I left the drop down menu the same as from the page where I copied it...so the only thing that was for sale there was the remaining stock of Perfect Poppers! Oops! Also, a few guys yesterday morning were sharing the same shopping cart....I had changed some wording in one of the scripts the night before...oops again! No harm done on either count, we straightened up the orders and I added the correct items to the drop down menu this morning...all it well and I'm still human ;-) Check out the needlefish, I've never seen anything like them before....and they are just in time, we've actually got a great amount of sandeels in our sand for the first time in many, many years! It's gonna be some fall folks, get yer gear and be prepared!

      Let's get registered for the as soon as you are certain you can attend! Accurate numbers will help in all facets of preparing for the Fling! Much as the rest of you, this is my busiest time of the year, fishing wise that is! I'll be taking an entire week of at some point very soon...prior to the Fling, it would be nice to be able to have a fairly accurate number of Flingers. No, it's not really that important that you register right now, but the sooner the better! I've got some more info for the Fling pages as to the locations we're planning to fish, but first I gotta get up the Hab's Needlefish and Gibb's bottles and darters....soon, very soon my friends! ;-)

Sincerely,

Tim Surgent