TheSpaniard

I saw those worms on bunker last year as well. My observation is that these worms seem to be attached to bunker that spent the winter up in the Raritan. I guess we’ll all be curious if we have massive bunker die offs as well. A lot of those bunker floating into shore half dead had these worms on them.

Hi Guys, Always wanted one of these in my collection. Going to a good home if your will to part ways. Money or I may have some other plugs from the same era that would be of interest in a trade. Thanks, John

Sorry about that, I just missed this. If your still interested in selling them I will take both for 220 shipped FF. Thanks, John

I can’t remember who’s theory it is but it’s the “Bowl of MMs”. when the stocks were fully recovered and healthy these fish showed up in numbers everywhere. The problem is that they become easily accessible just like the MMs around the edges of the bowl. Everything stated above is correct. I too witnessed the same thing down in OBX 15-20 years back. Those easy to kill fish were harvested fast. I sat there one day on a beach in OBX catching stripers from the surf when a bunch of guys in trucks showed up. They launched nets from the surf and killed off entire schools of fish. long story short there are less MMs in the bowl and the areas at the extremes of their migrations(edges of the bowl) just don’t have any left. Now you gotta go to the center of the bowl and yes there are still fish. Even though NJ had fantastic striper fishing this fall people should in this area should not take that as a good sign of overall health. Sadly many do correlate it that way.

When I fished LBI predominantly towards the end of the season I always picked away at some fluke. Not sure why that area held them close in this late in the season. I don’t think I ever got one from the surf this late in the year fishing OC/MoCo.

I’ll take the 2 yellow that are left.

How much are you looking for them?

Hi Guys, Always have my eye out for Whistles and it’s been some time now. Figured I would throw this up in case a collector of these decides to move on and wants them to go to another good home. Thanks, John

I’ll take it

I’m not normally a believer in hyped new baits…… that said the NLBN Shad’s slayed fish when other Shad’s were just get a slower pick. I mean like 10 to 1 kind of difference. The rubber used in those baits reminds me of harder slime, you know the stuff kids love. It’s very pliable and the tail wiggles strong when barely being moved.

Overall I felt proud of the surf community. I did keep a couple fish for the table this fall but for the most part it was fairly rare to see guys taking fish home. I remember the days of spring blitz fishing where after the blitz was over and everyone left there would be a handful of 40#+ fish just left behind for the gulls…..

I was fishing in one of the good bites early on and ended up getting a 27” fish on a Yo-zuri twitch bait. The second back hook got the fish in the gill plate really good. The fish was bleeding bad and that’s why I measured it as I would have kept it at that point. Unfortunately it was short and got it back in the water. It swam off strong but came belly up a few mins later. guys were hemming and hawing “who would do that”. Rules are rules and that fish couldn’t come home and didn’t make it. Probably the only striper I’ve had for fast like that on me.

Started south this am and picked up 3 footballs on a epoxy jig. Biggest around 26”. Drove north to make sure it wasn’t going off somewhere annnnnddd it wasn’t. Saw zero bait in close today. Small groups of birds chasing very small pods of working bait/fish pods 200 yards out. Saw one good splash today out there. My guess is they were footballs out there too. A boat fleet did not come together today either. Boaters O did see we’re trolling around and looking for most of the day. Seems the fish we had last weekend have moved on but hey you never know when the next school will come through.

Anyone ready for some more NW wind tomorrow? I’ll be out there taking the plugs for a walk.

I have seen full grown butterfish around for 3 weeks. Peanuts and bunker are fairly normal but squid, sandeels, and macks……. Sounds like we had a really good push of offshore baitfish come inshore. No doubt this has a lot to do with the great fishing we have seen.