11/17

It is with great pain that I write this, for I spent all day Saturday and all day Sunday fishing in South Jersey with some of the best fishermen in some of the best spots with some of the best bait, and I didn't catch a single goddamn fish. Thats an exaggeration, I did catch a single fish, many fish actually, but none worthy of being called a keeper. Fishing is pretty limited right now, many of the fish we expect to catch in Jersey waters have left our bays and shorelines by this time of year in search of warmer waters. Our water temps are generally in the lower 50's, which is a great water temp for, wait for it, Striped Bass and Tautog. Yes, thats right, Striped Bass and Tautog. Heres my weekend.

I reached out into the cloud to a person I met last year, a guy named Ken who may have a similar condition as the rest of us known as fishing addiction. He has a place in Wildwood so with that I had found a way to justify fishing for days, that is, with a place to sleep 10 minutes from the fishing spots. Drive down to Cape May on Friday after work to hang out and chunk some Bunker on a Cape May beach. The bunker I picked up is real fresh, Off the Hook in Cape May gets good Bunker, as I have recently found out. I meet up with Ken and we fish from 5pm to a little after 8pm, which would be the last of the outgoing and start of the incoming tide. We catch trash fish, Spiny Dogs and a Skate, we only go through 5 Bunker. We knew from the start that the Surf is deader than Satan himself, but figured it was worth a shot. I might add that there is a WNW blowing at about 25mph, which would do nothing for us other than make it feel colder.

My plan for the weekend was to go out on my buddy Dano's boat on Saturday and chunk the bay, and then fish Sunday somewhere for Tog, either from shore or from party boat. My plans were tied loosely, open to change, the best idea that could enter my brain before the time to fish would be the one to go with. Ken earns himself a spot on the boat and the 3 of us push off the dock around 7am Saturday Morning. Its still blowing out of the WNW at a good clip, 20mph or so, and the High Temp was forecasted to be in the lower 40's. We have 40 fresh bunker, heading west through the Cape May Canal. We come around the last bend and the ferry terminal comes into sight. The Canal is calm, only a couple hundred feet across, no room for the wind to really kick up a lot of water, but as the Bay slowly comes into view it is clear that we are bearing down on the Black Gates of Mordor. Dano's boat is 21', which is nowhere near large enough to get out on the Bay at that time. We get about 10 feet
into the bay, which is equivalent to 3 waves to the face, before saying fuck this, doing a 180 and running back into canal. It's cool though, we knew this was going to happen, we were prepared. The wind forecast called for diminishing winds later in the day, so we would go out front along the Beaches of CM and WW and chunk our bunker and troll stretch 25's under the protection of the coastline and wait for the bay to calm down to fishable levels. West wind blowing off the east coast, calm water, you understand. It's still choppy out there but totally fishable... Dogfishable that is. Right now, anywhere you go along the beach, you're going to catch Spiney Dogfish. After about an hour or 2 of chunking (25' of water along the beach), and catching our share of Dogs, we went back inside to go make sure the Black Gates of Mordor were still closed... they were, in fact worse than the first time. So we stop by the Marina and grab some Trolling lures and we troll in front of Wildwood. We don't catch, but we do come across large schools of Bunker, which we snag and keep in our cooler just in case we do end up getting out on the bay. Theres boats everywhere out front, all people who couldn't get out on the bay most likely, all fishing out front for Dogfish. Well 3:45pm comes around and we make one more attempt at the Black Gates, and this time they're open. Unguarded and Open. We get out with little problem and in the last hour of the day are able to hit a 38lb Bass. Crazy save right there, I was pretty convinced we weren't making it out to the fishing grounds on this day.

Fillets off the 38lber

Dano 38.6lber 11/15

Stomach Contents

Something worth mentioning is there is a troll bite along our beaches. We didn't catch any but over the weekend many large fish were quietly boated while trolling off our South Jersey Beaches.

So feeling pretty defeated by a stubborn NW wind and an Angry Bay, we go have some drinks at Harbor View. Tomorrow would be a new day.

Sunday Sunday Sunday, goin fishing on a Long ass Jetty in the most southern part of NJ, off limits to the public. Fuck yea, Easy limit, no one else to compete with, thousands of hungry tautog waiting to commit suicide as soon as we drop down, this was going to be a good day. It was opening day... the limit now 6 fish per man. There are only so many spots to catch Tautog from Shore in NJ, especially during the 2nd half of November, but the Cape May Inlet is one of them. Oh don't worry though, everyone already knows that, based on the hundreds, literally hundreds of people who were out there on Sunday. The North Jetty is open to the Public to fish on, only catch is you have to walk a mile down the beach to get to it. Would you believe that over 100 people made that mile death walk on Sunday? In NJ we may call that fishing, but in life we call this the Asian Invasion. Yes, over 100 Asian people walked that mile to catch fish for themselves and their relatives, for it is only the beloved "Brack Feetch" that could cause a mass migration as this. No I am not racist, not any more racist than the average human being, but if you were to look at everyone on that jetty you would see that more than 9 out of 10 were asian. You would also see that not all of them were poaching Tog, despite the fact that many of them were. I have a hard time getting off the subject of Asians and Blackfish and poaching, but anyways, Ken and Myself found our way out onto the south jetty and fished for about 5-6 hours without a keeper fish. SIN!
How the hell did we go out there and not catch a single 15" Tog? We did get lots of shorts... and each broke off 2 nice fish, but it really wasn't our day and after losing about 30 hooks we would decide it a good idea to go try a bridge to the north. For the record, there were boats lined up along the entire jetty, leaving us the tip of the jetty to fish. Loaded with fish out there but challenging to land, pulling them straight up from 30'+ (perhaps more lie 50'+) along a wall of rocks. No excuses. We failed. We failed at the 2nd spot too. 2nd spot also was extremely pressured... 30 guys on a smallish bridge. The pressure on these fish is real. We caught somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 shorts all day. At one point while we were on the tip of the south jetty we had a boat collision right in front of us. I looked over and saw 2 boats side by side, they looked to be sharing crabs or food or something, both holding on to the other boat in a seemingly friendly manner, but it turned out no, it was some dumbass opening day shenanigans, too many boats in too little of a space, the video tells the story-

Dano is a beast. He fishes like a madman when the time is right, and when it comes to chunking cows he dials in. Hes been out more than a few times this fall and hes boated a 30+lber on every trip except for one, even on Saturday in an hours worth of fishing he still set up on a 38lb fish. I was out with him and our friend Mike last Sunday and we had a pretty great day considering how its been. We got 6 Bass, one fat short and 5 keepers going 15, 23, 34, 35, and 36lbs. Its been really really dreadfully slow out there, I know we got pretty lucky that day, most people are reporting skunks or just 1 or 2 fish. There are beasts out there though, fish to 59lbs have been weighed in since last weekend, the key is though you have to have luck on your side. Time is critical, the more hours you put in the better, I've been lucky to have gone twice, however in 2 trips I have caught just 2 stripers. 1 fat short and a 34lb fish. Heres a video showing all our fish last Sunday.

Also adding a few pics of some more Delaware Bay Cows 30-40lbs, all Dano right here.

I striper fished from the rocks at Barnegat Inlet twice this fall and didn't get a bite either time. I came across this video though of what Barnegat looks like when there are fish there...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1NqmHjdnRwQ

NOVEMBER 1ST

This is the mega fishing recap for the Phila-Jersey area from the past period of time. Its for my friend Romo who drove to VA Beach 3 weeks ago for Bull Reds and got skunked. Sorry bud.

I. Freshwater

Ian with a nice Schuylkill Hybrid

Closest to home, the Schuylkill is fishing poorly. The Flathead bite has been off since August when a couple friends caught a couple nice fish. Usually it picks up in September before slowing down with the colder weather in October, but this year the action died with the water flow. The Skuke dipped below 1000 cfs in July (I think) and with the flows went the action. August started OK with a slow bite, but some rogue fish.. but it ended shitty, and September, a month when "it pops", was deader than'a rattlesnake birthday cake. The Skuke was crazy clear for months, with the water at 500cfs and lots of flushing rains in the spring, we were left with clearer than normal conditions which really shut the whole thing down. Stripers, Hyrbids, and Walleyes do still exist in the river, those who put in the time can be rewarded with a few nice fish, mainly target any of the dams on the river and you may or may not catch a decent sized gamefish.

Romo with a late season Flathead

James Jersey Crappie

My buddy messaged me online and said he fished for bass for 10 hours one day this week and didn't catch a single bass. He was up in Bucks county at a couple different spots, says his friend also got skunked. I have tried for bass a few times recently and have hit or miss results... more recently its been more of a miss.

Meanwhile, if you can locate some panfish (Which I suggest you do), the crappies seem to loving the colder weather. I had good action on gills, bass and crappies in some local spots, however, nothing was of noteworthy size. A friend in NJ has been doing well fishing a drainage of the Delaware, catching a bunch of Crappies with several over the 13" mark. Panfishing could be the best thing going right now, and should stay hot for the next month and until our lakes lock up with ice.

Schuylkill Crappie

What tried to eat Tim's Shiner?

II. The Shore

Saltwater in New Jersey. I have been completely out of the loop with the shore lately so rather than speculating and theorizing about non-existent Stripers and Striper feeding habits, I made a phone call to a friend who is still very much immersed into the Striper Surf Fishing lifestyle. He Primarily fishes North Jersey, from LBI to Sandy Hook. I asked him, hows the Striper Fishing been? "Sucks. Fuckin Blows". Those were his words, and in fact he said the words sucks and blows dozens of times during our conversation. The last striper he caught was during the 2nd week of October, he got into a backbay bite landing 7 fish with one being a 35"-36" fish. 2 trips since then, nothing. The beaches have generally been very slow, however there is 127 miles of oceanfront beach to fish, so my understanding is about 125 of those miles have been a dead zone. Halloween day there was a nice bite right at the beginning of this Nor'easter that put Bass to 35lbs on the beaches from the Hook to IBSP. It wasn't every beach, but plenty of different areas had action from nice fish.

I haven't heard a single thing about reds or specks in South Jersey. My guess is they are too few and far between to target, I think our brutal winter last year may have been detrimental to our 2010 stock of reds, and I don't think theres been a hot speck bite going on, not in the last few years.

Jersey gets the same run of fish every year. Stripers start to trickle in during October, and in November its usually a better bite, before turning into a boat game in December. If you wish to read more about Jersey stripers and other current action, scroll through the hundreds of pages of online reports at Striperonline, for you will surely find better info there than here.

It is set as of 10/29/14 that the Striper Regulations will be set to 1 fish @ 28"+ in 2015. Cool.



III. Marthas Vineyard Striper Derby 2014

In 2013, Myself and 3 friends embarked on an epic journey to Marthas Vineyard during the Fall Striper Derby to stay at a house on the Island and compete with 2 thousand other fishermen for a chance to win a brand new Boat. That year was great, the fishing was slow and all the fishermen had given up, we went 4 days without getting a fish to weigh in, but on the 5th day we stumbled into a major Albie Blitz which would provide ridiculous action with no one else around. For 2 days we had blitzes all to ourselves, but by the 3rd day the masses caught wind of the bite and there were no less than 20 other anglers at the spot, waiting to catch Albies. Well the third day, the fish didn't show, and about 20 people got skunked. But not Bill Hansen. Bill was one of the 4 I embarked on the journey with, and on this day he hooked, fought in front of 20 people, and landed a 13lb and some odd change False Albacore, which would win the Shore Division of the Derby. By winning the Albie division, he was placed with the winners of the Bonita, Blue, and Striper Division, where each were given a key. 1 of those keys would start the new boat, and a grand prize winner would then be crowned. Bill didn't win the boat, but he did win a ton of cool prizes and some money, so fuck yea Bill, and fuck yea Seamoneyfishing for getting to the top.

2014, the same journey would not be made. Instead, 2 of the 4 made it up during different weeks of the derby, Bill went back in attempt to redeem himself, and Romo also went back for his piece of the pie. Heres what Romo had to say about the 2014 Derby-

The 2014 derby was one of the best years for false albacore and bonito in over a decade. I saw breaking fish every day I was on the island at 3 different inlets. Fish were much pickier than years past, only taking the smallest offerings on the lightest flouro. This led to a lot of breakoffs, including a heartbreaking fish lost at pogue gut. I had the inlet to myself on the third morning and a rogue albie blew up on my deadly dick at the end of my cast. The fish ripped drag and began to quickly empty the spool on my 4000 stradic. It showed no signs of slowing down so I panicked, lightly cupped the spool and instantly my light 15lb leader parted. I only saw the fish's strike but it's power was much more impressive than the 6-7 lb fish I encountered the rest of the week.

I also was lucky enough to get my dad in on the action as he took down 2 albies in 2 hours of fishing in his last day on the island. Both fish hit blind casts while 30+ surf fishermen and fly rodders were kicking the sand and bullshitting after an uneventful sunrise. They were his first albies and he is hooked. 

My first kayak albie was awesome. I was bobbing around in front of an inlet on a cold, dreary morning. The jetties in front of me grew more and more packed as the sun came up. No fish showed, but I stuck around anyway, keeping busy by jigging seabass, scup, flounder and bluefish that blanketed the bottom. I had my rod on my lap when a pod of albies blew up in a jetty pocket that no one was watching. I made one cast and saw the fish blast out of the water. My line started singing and the guys on the jetty turned and started casting but the fish were gone. That fish ran out into the bay and took about 10 minutes to subdue. I drove to the 8AM weigh in and locked in the top spot in the kayak division for albies. This fish would stand until 4 days before the derby closed. 

The kayak fishing at the less busy inlets was excellent. There were fish breaking almost constantly for 2 days but, again, were very finicky and line shy. I fished with about 10 boats and a few kayakers for those 2 days and I was able to land 2 out of the 3 albies I saw hooked by the entire fleet in that time.

Here are a few pics from Bill, who fished the last week of the derby. He said the fishing was really good and is already booking a house for the 2015 Derby. He got his wife in on the action too, nice work Bill!

                   
                         





IV. Bull Redfish. Part I



It was the first week of October and I had a Friends wedding to attend on Friday night. I had been working Saturdays for months and I finally had an excuse to get out of work for a 3 day weekend, and it was on that Friday, before the Wedding, that I called my friend Mike and asked if he wanted to go fish the VA beach area for Bull Reds the following day. He said ehhhhhhhhh yea Ill do that, so we leave Philly around 10 am Saturday and drove south to the Bridge Tunnel. This trip was spontaneous, spur of the moment, saw a picture online and said fuck everything lets go. The way a fishing trip should be! It was going down as the Nomadic Suicide Drum Trip, with nowhere to stay, we brought sleeping bags where we would huddle up and sleep next to our rods, probably with our lines tied to our beards to wake us up when the 50" Redfish would bite.

While at the wedding, I had told my friends that I was going down to VA beach to fish for Bull Reds. Half of them wished they could go, they supported my decision and said "go get em, you can do it", while the other half, my friend Romo included, said "thats retarded. you're not gonna catch any Bull Reds, thats gonna be a long drive to catch nothing".

Well Mike and I got down to the CBBT in about 5 hours and stepped out into a ridiculous wind which was probably somewhere between 25 and 30 miles an hour out of the west. We threw all our crap in buckets, bags, we had 6 rods, a cooler, hoodies, more bags, a net... we were well on our nomadic way. Orginially I had it in my head that we would fish close to shore, along the rock outcropping which builds the 1st (or 3rd, depending on who you ask) island of the Bridge Tunnel. So we cast out, first only to catch bait. We have none, we weren't prepared with fresh cob mullet or salty spot heads... but we did have 8 pints of green crabs, for the sheepshead, spades, trigs and totaugs which would surely be down there. So we're fishing... not catching much. Mike gets a small Jack, then a minute later yells "Yo!" and points down to the water. I run over and look down and see a nice happy school of bunker, meandering around under the pier. Tie on a treble, and boom we have drum bait. It was around this time that I see a net coming up the end of the pier with a big fish in it. At first I'm like whoa.... then Im like, thats gotta be a shark... but that tail doesn't look like a shark. So I sprint, from the start of the pier out to the end just in time to see a 50" drum getting swung up the rail of the pier. ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME!?

A 50" Drum which hit the planks
a couple hours after we arrived.

I take 3 pictures with my phone and I jet back to our trash camp where all our rods are scattered and everything is pulled out of our buckets and bags. Somehow I manage to have a fresh bunker head out near the end of the pier probably 2 minutes after seeing that fish.... and I go back to bait fishing. Schools of bunker meander through and Its great, we were able to get at least a dozen fresh bunker which would provide glorious cut bait for the Bull Reds. About 45 minutes after I casted out my drum rod, it gets a run. I set the hook, the fish rips drag, I tell myself its a shark for the duration of the 5 minute fight. It real slow pulls drag straight down under the pier, toward a piling, reaaal slow. I refused to believe it was a drum until I saw it on the surface. OH MY GOD, the blueish black tail with the golden body, there on my line, and its big! Mike gets the net and first swoop that fish is in and ascending up the pier. We get it up, its there in the net, laying on the ground, measures 44". I take some pics, and release it.

44" Drum, my first Bull!

Incredible. Just like that, probably 2 hours after arriving, mission accomplished. So Im siked as hell. The wind is intensifying, the bunker are still hitting the cooler, we get a few shitty shark/skate runs... it's nice. One guy had about a 60lb Brown Shark up to the side of the pier and broke it off. There were no bottom fish around, a couple spike weakies here and there, but no spot or croaker. Its getting windier and winder as the sun sets, and the group of people who were out at the end of the pier leave, so we go out and try out there. I get another good run right as its almost completely dark and its another nice red, this one smaller at 40".

2nd nice one at 40" made this
a successful trip

They don't call it Seagull Pier for
nothing!

That would be our last Hoorah, for by the time night fell, we were fishing in a sustained 30-40mph wind. There were no gusts or luffs, just gouging wind at the same speed, blowing everything away and over as soon as you put it down. By 12am we are out of bait and contemplating suicide so we decide to drive 3 hours to lewes where we stay at my parents house. That drive back was painful in the wee hours of the morning. 3 hours of empty road, 50 mph speed limits, and extreme wind burn. After a successful trip and knowing the pain of the drive, I tell myself I won't come back down to try to replicate this trip, I already got what I wanted and theres no way I could be lucky enough to do it again. That Sunday we wake up and fish IRI, but its beat. We release about 40 green crabs and call it a trip.


At this point I have Drum Fever. The fever spreads to my friend Romo, the same guy who said it was a bad idea to go down there in the first place. The following Thursday, guess who drives by himself 5 hours to camp for 2 days in his kayak to fish for Bull Reds? Thats right, Mr. Romo himself. He goes down, kayaks out into the mouth of the bay, fighting the wind and current, and doesn't catch any redfish! Not on day 1 at least, and on day 2 he wakes up in his tut-hut and decides to just drive home. Im texting him the whole time, anything? anything? any action? oh, no reds? aww man the bunker you bought isn't any good? aww Im sorry dude. Thats what I told him... but in my mind all Im thinking is (in Eric Cartmans voice) yeeeeessssss, yeeeeeeesssssssssss!

               

Part II

The following weekend.... Saturday.. Oct 11th. I was not planning on going to VA to fish for Reds, but when my boss sent me home at 10am, I quickly realized I had a window which would give the insane fishing junky reason enough in his mind that he could get down to VA beach by 4pm with just barely enough time to make the trip worth it.... barely. Fish all night, sleep at some point, and then be back home in Philadelphia at a reasonable hour Sunday night to get to bed and wake up for work on Monday morning. I don't have anyone to go with when I get out of work at 10am Saturday, I wasn't planning on going, it was a random occurrence that I got out early.. I call around, and I find my boy James is into the idea enough that he's able to put everything aside for a couple days and make the trip south. So by about noon on Saturday, we're out, we're driving south, get down to the CBBT at exactly 4:16pm. This time we stop at a shop called Master Baiters in Delaware, and pick up 16 semi fresh bunker. So we are once again on a Suicide Nomadic Drum Trip, this time armed with 16 baits, still with intention of catching bait while we're there. The wind forecast says 10-15 MPH NW wind, and once again, we step out of the car and are greeted with the same 22-28mph wind, and once again, it intensifies to around 30+mph for a period of time before slowing down slightly to 15-20 after midnight. Well we fish all over the pier, we catch lots of skates and Juvenille Brown Sharks, and meet a few dudes who are very hardcore into fishing the VA beach area. It was about 3 am, we're talking to a guy named Bryan who really opened up to all the tricks and spots he has for the local fisheries... James and I are both tired and worn from not catching anything. Bryan understands our situation, driving down from Philly to fish and then drive back and go to work. Its about 4am and hes telling us to drive 45 minutes to this spot that would be real good........... Im thinking.... yea right. No way. Haha. Well hes talking about it and we're drinking tequila and we conclude; fuck it. We are nomads and this is a suicide trip, so right after 4am we pack up and hit the road. This pier that Bryan suggests opens at 5am, maybe it was 5:30, but we get there right before it opens and theres at least 6 other trucks there waiting for the gate to open. It opens. We drive into the lot, gear up and walk out the pier to find out that it's incredible short, only taking us to where the breakers start on the deep side of the sandbar. This is an ocean pier... and the ocean is rough. The wind here is Blowing NNE and literally as soon as we get out there someone is hooked up. The pier is narrow, maybe 15' side to side, and only about 50' of it is extended into the water... so the end of the pier is where its at. Its lined up with about 7 rods, all 11'-13' custom hatteras heavers, these guys are all using 10oz+ weight with leaders no more than a couple inches in length. I can hang with this type of fishing, I have an 11' rod with a 6000 size Shimano Baitrunner, so I bait up some fresh cob mullet, given to me by bryan, and bomb one out, a little off to the right to not tangle the guys who are set up. 5 minutes later my 6oz pyramid has drifted far to the right, parallel to shore, even though I had casted straight out .... so I reel in, I put 2 6oz pyramids on, and again, launch it out, this time off to the left. The current is moving left to right, and its pretty wicked with the big ocean. Over the coarse of the next 20-30 minutes, I let my rod sit in the same place as more and more fishermen arrive and cast out at the end of the pier. A line of fishermen forms behind me, all waiting to bomb baits out with their 12', 1000$ setups. They all have conventional tackle with MONO on their reels. We see a total of 4 Drum landed before I go to check on my rig and make sure Im not tangled with one of the now 15-20 rods that are lined up along the end of the pier.... backup a minute. 4 Bull Reds, all sluts in the 25-35lb range, big sluttly bellies, big slutty mouths.... it would be one of the best bites of the season Im sure. James and I watch in sleep deprived delusion as to whats going on... we don't say a word. James only has an 8' rod so its pitched out along the side of the pier to surely get washed into the pilings and be useless, but also to avoid an epic tangle. I took care of the epic tangle part. Im reeling in my rig and notice as Im reeling that its tangled with 2 other rods... so I stop reeling, and the 3 of us work together to try to untangle it. It takes awhile... it's pretty bad. There is still a line of people waiting to cast... and they can't cast for as long as we are tangled, meanwhile, someone is fighting a drum. Finally we get untangled and I continue to reel in, and as Im reeling I feel an unsettling feeling... the feeling of tension and odd weight... I bring my rig up the pier and see exactly what I didn't want to see, a complex birdsnest of intertwined hooks, weights, baits and lines of different colors. Nobody notices..... then one guy says "what do ya got there" and quickly all eyes turn to the shit show that is in my hands and before you know it Im being told that my braided line is no good here and that I have to leave. Lots of people are pissed off. Lots of people had to retie their rigs. Lots of people couldn't cast out for at least 10 minutes while I stood there and fumbled with sleep deprivation, drum fever, and 2 6oz pyramid sinkers on my fishfinder rig. I walk back a little ways and say to james we need to get the fuck out of here. And we do. Real quick. We are completely dumbfounded as to what just happened, dozen of guys casting out off a 15' wide pier, during a red hot Drum bite. 45 minutes at this pier and I am humbled and we are back on the road. This would not be our last Nomadic Suicide Drum Trip. There are no pictures from this trip.

Part III

This past weekend I was off Saturday, got out of work at 1 on Friday, which would give us enough time to justify driving to the OBX in search of our Bull Reds. Weather Forecast looks meh. West winds 5-15 mph all weekend. Thats great weather for comfort, but not for putting Bulls on the bank. We hit the road just after 3pm on Friday and get to VA beach a little after dark. We Stop at the Seagull Pier, just to look into the dark water and see if anything is going on. Nothing is going on, so we go 10 minutes south to Lynnehaven Inlet. We Stop here to try to catch bait, for on this trip we had none. We checked out a few spots around the inlet and were able to net a dozen fish, however not one was designed for Drum Bait. It was mostly small Sand Perch, not nearly big enough to be put on a 9/0 hook. We also net 3 baby Fluke and some killies. We push south. Check out another bait spot 15 minutes away, nothing, keep heading south. Get gas, get a Hardees burger, and arrive in the OBX at about 10pm.

We go right to the Manteo Causeway Bridge, which is a small bridge going over the sound, a great fishing spot. I quickly see movement on the surface of the water and I think I've found the baitfish Im looking for. I get my net, throw, and get nothing. I throw a bunch of times at schools of fish that I think are Mullet, but after a dozen throws I realize these fish are actually large Peanut Bunker. After a few hours we have lots and lots of bunker and are dropping chunks into the water to hopefully catch trout, bass or drum. Instead we get chewed up by crabs, so bad that its good. We end up with 7 or 8 nice keeper size crabs which were to stupid to let go of our bait, allowing us to swing them up onto shore.

We drove down to the OBX expecting the piers to be open 24/7, at least I did, but we found out on the way down that they all close between 12am and 5am. It was a bummer but it allowed us to take some time to catch fresh bait, and by 430 we were in the pier parking lot rigging up. We get out to the end of the pier at about quarter after 5, cast out some bunker chunks, and then rig up to catch bait, which on this day, would be spot. It turns out there was a whole dense population of spot hanging out at this pier. All the spot you want, nice for our bait cooler. We fish in the dark, and watch the sunrise with 3 pier people, all hatteras heaver mono conventional guys, all of us get nothing. Right after dawn we see a Mola Mola slowly floating by with its tail fin sticking up out of the water. It looked like a pretty sickly fish, and is only the 2nd Mola Ive ever seen while standing on shore. Shortly after, one of the pier people tied into a pelican which would make it up onto the pier and into my grips. First time handling a pelican, got a good dose of hate-love for a new bird species wrapped in fishing line. The angler snapchatted the bird and then released it.

 This sunrise would put me past my 24 hour mark for being awake, for it is after 24 hours of being awake that the hallucinations begin. The sun came up and it turned into daytime and the pier filled up with a ridiculous amount of people, all fishing off the north side (every single person, on the north side), all bailing Spot and Spike Trout. These Trout were the winter variety, the spotted, or speckled trout, and 99.5% are under the 14" size limit. We're getting some runs on the drum rods but they are mostly sharks, the toothy kind, that bite your hook off and fray your leader. Sharks are a cool fish in NJ, because there is nothing better to catch on your fresh chunk in the summertime, but south of NJ, where there are true finfish which can attain sizes of 80+lbs, a shark is a nuisance.

Our plan originally is to drum fish until about 9 or 10am, then go crabbing/sleep for the rest of the day to rest up for an evening session on the pier. Noon comes around and we're still on the pier... we are breaking off sharks ever 15 minutes or so, only getting one 5' Sandtiger up to the side of the pier. We can see Albie Blitzes half a mile out, all the while jigging the shit out of 11" specks. It was feeling really good to be in a place where there was so much life in the water. I don't know about James but I was incredibly delirious, finally we decide it's time to leave and on our way out I stop and tell James we have to take 2 casts right here in the wash. I throw out the pink zoom fluke and 2nd cast get bit, it would turn out to be a 17" Speck. Specks have a special place in my heart, for years I would fish the backbays of NJ hoping to catch a speck, but never did, never one over 12" at least. Their silver flesh covered in black spots, with a blue-green hue that glistens in the sunlight makes them one of the prettier inshore fish. That one fish gave me a renewed energy, and after that it was off to the grocery store and the tackle shop. We spent some money on some bullshit and hit the bridge to try to catch crabs. 

2 crabs and a Seagull I had to
get a picture with

We crabbed for way too long, and only got a dozen keepers.. 4pm and we are both painfully sleep deprived. We lay down in the shade to try to get some sleep and the sleep doesn't come... we are so far into the deep end that we can't turn our brains off and sleep.... it's a problem. We end up going back to the pier at about 6pm and pick up where we left off. There is still over a hundred people fishing off the north side of the pier, and still not 1 on the south side. Only about 4 or 5 guys at the end fishing for drum. We take our time getting baited up and casted out, I catch a single spot and put its head on a hook and bomb it out, luckily without fear of getting my braid tangled with 2 dozen drum-raveged locals. 10 minutes later it gets a run, I set the hook and immediately it hits the surface. Shark. I fight the shark for about 10 minutes and get a visual on a Sandtiger about 6-7 feet in length. I fight it for another 10 minutes alongside the pier before I am able to break it off. I put all my remaining energy into that fight and about 10 minutes after that I was asleep. I was asleep on the bench at the end of the pier for about 3 hours before making it back to the car for more sleep. That would be the last of our 3rd Drum trip. We shouldn't have crabbed for so long, instead, we should have slept, and fished all night. Live and learn.

In Closing

I am in back Philadelphia with no desire to do any type of fishing at all, locally speaking. I want to go south. Our Striper run is a bunch of hype any more, tackle shops profiting off bunker and clams bought by people who won't catch a keeper fish all fall. Less fish and more fishermen. The hunt still continues though, for the biggest and baddest fish.
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9/7

Fishing in Philly is dead. Let me repeat, fishing in Philly is dead. All our waters are fished out. Time to take up golf.

8/17

This Blog is dedicated to anyone who thinks fish. Anyone who spent all their money on a trip and got skunked, or walked a mile only to lose a big one at their feet. Anyone who's had their line break, their rod snap, or hopes and dreams of an epic bite shattered by the powers that be. This ones for you.

The weather has been awesome lately. Most summer's we're sweating our nuts off in heat and humidity but the past few weeks have been really nice. I don't know how the fishing has been going for everyone, August is typically a pretty slow time of year, but action seems decent right now.

I spent an afternoon with a caravan of friends in South Jersey one day last week, cutting up gills and chunking them on the mud bottom of a swampy Drainage to the Delaware River. We were at our old standby bowfin spot, which has served us well over the past year, producing a few bowfins for us on an average day. For whatever reason, the spot has sucked lately, it probably has something to do with fishing pressure and the amount of people who target them there now. This is the worst thing for a fisherman, to have his spot beat up by other anglers, to the point that he can't catch his target fish anymore. Thats the way fishing goes though, and honestly, I don't care enough about bowfins to worry much about it. If other people have gone there and caught fins, then thats great, they probably enjoyed catching that fish more than I, and it doesn't bother me at all. So we fished about 2 hours here, long enough to realize that it was beat and that we should try a different spot. We moved a couple miles and set up camp on a little bridge that went over a swampy looking canal and casted out our cutbaits. It was slow to start. Our first fish ended up being a pickerel who took a chunk of bluegill, a healthy one too probably around 20" in size, first time I have seen a pickerel caught on cutbait. We got turtled on just about every cast, but between the turtle runs had some action with the fins. Tricky ass fish to catch, because of their bone plated mouths and tendencies of swimming towards you when hooked, but we persisted and eventually got a couple to the bank. We left before the tiger mosquitos got bad.

The Flathead Fishing in the Schuylkill is beat to shit right now, at least for me. August is prime time for big fish but right now the going is slow. The water is low and clear and thats not motivating any big flatheads to go out and look for food. Tried twice this past week, with both nights being painfully slow, not even many runs from small fish. Had a 24lber the one night, but thats not enough to get the blood boiling, and the feeling of defeat at the end of a flathead session is hardly worth the effort of catching bait or putting in the time. Flatheads are a bitch, and the fish gods are especially unforgiving when it comes to catching large specimens. There is much pain involved in waiting for that good bite. 

Changed tactics a little bit recently and started targeting smallies in the Schuylkill, which has been surprisingly productive. Most of the fish are dinks, 8" in size, but there are still 20" fish in the river. Today I was out with my buddy Tan and we had a walleye, a grip of smallies, a largemouth and a 5lb channel cat. The biggest smallie was around 14" and they were hitting all kinds of jigs and soft plastics, pretty much anything we threw, including tubes, zoom flukes and senkos. Years ago in 2005 through 2008 it was a no brainer, you could go down to stretches of the river and catch dink smallie after dink smallie, 10, 30 or 50 in a day was easy work, and you could find better sized fish if you tried. In 2009 or 2010 those days abruptly came to an end and all of a sudden they disappeared. I don't know if it was a bad year class or what, but I had pretty much lost all hope and assumed the last smallie had been eaten by flatheads. Well here we are in 2014 and things seem back to normal.

8/10

This Blog is dedicated to anyone who thinks fish. Anyone who spent all their money on a trip and got skunked, or walked a mile only to lose a big one at their feet. Anyone who's had their line break, their rod snap, or hopes and dreams of an epic bite shattered by the powers that be. This ones for you.

The BassMaster Elite is in town and Mike Iaconelli finished in first place today with 47lbs of bass over the last 4 days. I am not very much into Pro Bass fishing, only a little bit because it's fishing, but since it was in my home town I had to check it out. Went down Friday and Sunday to the weigh in at Penns Landing. On Friday my friend James and I slugged beers and shot tequila and tried to cheer our hero Grant Goldbeck up after weighing in a single 13" fish. I told him that this river sucks for bass and thats why we fish for snakeheads and bowfins. Goldbeck finished in 93rd place with 4lbs of bass. Ouch. Thats better than KVD did though, scoring only 3.6lbs, so in short, many of the countries top pros went home embarrassed and humbled by the river and tributaries that we call ours.

We watched Mike Ike go from 21st place to 1st on Friday, and then watch him take 1st place on Sunday. While leaving the weigh in area on Friday, feeling maybe a bit intoxicated, we ran into Ike finishing up signing autographs and taking pics and kind of hopped right over and took a picture with him. We got a cool picture with the Ben Franklin Bridge in the background, and after taking that picture, James proceeded to spend the next hour taking picture with every stranger we met. which was lot.

I always thought Mike Ike was a dork after seeing him scream and holler over every 2lb bass he catches, but the guy is cool and real and represents Philly, in his winning speech today he gave a shout out to the Schuylkill river, and catching bass out of shopping carts, which resonated deep in the hearts of anyone who's ever fished for bass in Philly. The announcers at the competition said Philly has the craziest fans in all the places they go, and everyone went wild for Ike, the whole time.

I had wondered going into this event how many snakeheads would be caught, and what kind of attention they'd get from the pros. I didn't hear much about any snakeheads, but did come across a picture of a snakehead caught either in the tourny, or in pre fishing, a beast that looks like it could be anywhere from 10-13lbs. Very nice fish, but I think less than a handfull of snakeheads were caught cumulatively by all the pros, on all 4 days. Overall this was a cool event, hopefully it does something positive for our local fishing scene.

Bass weigh ins have been at 3 every day, and in an attempt to win my own elite fishing tourny I went to a hole in a creek today that a friend told me had a large white koi in it. I woke up this morning around 11, laid around for awhile feeling miserable before deciding to go out and try to hunt the koi. I arrived around 1pm and quickly spotted the koi and threw some bread out. The fish was decent sized, hovering about a foot off the bottom in 4' of water, laying suspended in the same spot for minutes at a time. It was easy to tell that this fish was not on the feed. It took no interest in the bread I threw out, but I kept at it. I hoped that the bread falling slowly in front of her face would eventually trigger her (it was ID'd later but a koi expert as a female) to eat. Sunnies were relentless in eating my bread, but in my experiences of carp fishing the manayunk canal, sunnies eating your chum is a good thing because it eventually draws the interest of the carpicus's. 6 slices of bread, crumbled up and thrown strategically in front of the fish so it would fall slowly within eyesight, still no interest. One thing I had working in my favor though was this fish wasn't getting spooked by my chumming, catching sunnies, or walking the bank. It had no interest in eating, but it wasn't spooked. Just dumb and lazy and probably full from eating constantly for the past several months.

I was standing on a ledge that dropped into about 4' of water, and with the koi to my right slowly swimming in my direction, I dropped my weightless bread ball right in front of me. It sunk down past the layer of sunfish and minnows and just off the bottom into the money spot. The koi stayed on route and swam right in front of me, right over to my baited hook. It was the 2nd time in an hour that my bait was in the hot zone, and for the first time, the koi engulfed a piece of bread, luckily, a piece with my hook in it. I set the hook and fought the koi for 5 minutes on my ultra light rod and 4lb test before getting my arm under it and getting it up on to dry land. I quickly realized this koi was messed up... It was the mirror variety and deep red bruises along its back and all in front of its tail. My weight/length estimates are off right now from not catching many fish, but this koi was probably around 9 pounds and 24" long. I wanted to sell this koi to a person to keep as a pet in their pond, but after seeing the condition it was in I had to come up with a better idea. I could release the koi, back into his hole, or maybe to another body of water where It had a chance of healing, but then all the work I just did would have been for nothing. I texted a friend of mine shortly thereafter that has more experience with koi than anyone I know, and he said that if kept in a proper habitat, the bruising and redness would go away. I left the creek with the koi in my cooler, went and watched the bassmaster final 12 weigh in, then continued my adventure to a friends house in a more deciduous area. It was here that I was introduced to the backyard where my koi will hopefully be nursed back to health. 4 ponds of varying size, depth, water temperature and color, with species ranges from grass carp to steelhead, living in harmony and blitzing pellets off the surface. I learned about koi health, water filtration, what makes certain koi worth up to $50k and some ground up for fertilizer, and much more in the hour I spent at my friends house. The koi will stay at that location and hopefully be nursed back to health, thank you to my friend.



Flathead fished last night. It was a full moon, and not just any full moon, but the supermoon, the closest the moon gets to earth all year.. 14% larger and 30% brighter than normal. That means the strongest gravitational pull, highest tides of the year, and in theory, some of the slowest flatheading of the year. I don't buy into the moon phase affecting the flathead bite as much as some internet people would want you to believe, but last night was pretty slow. The river was also flowing at 700 cfs, which is as low as its been all year. Water flow being so low is reason enough for a slow bite, but I doubt a bright moon was working in our favor. Either way, we didn't catch anything good, just 5 or 6 smallish flatheads, biggest one going 15lbs. Others in our area also caught flatheads to 20lbs, but no rogues were seen or heard of.

A couple of my friends were fishing for sharks under the supermoon last night and didn't have any luck, they reported no spot or croakers around, no shark runs, piss warm water, and a very high tide. Any kind of coolwater upwelling we saw this summer is history, and the surf temps are as warm as they've been all year, many places are looking at 75 degrees along the beach. Heard of a good triggerfish bite for one lucky guy on friday morning, and another guy catching keeper fluke deadsticking chicken strips off a pier, but I wasn't able to get down to the salty water to try my luck.

If anyone reading this has pictures, stories, information, anything they'd like to contribute, leave a comment or email me at mcinteechris@gmail.com and I'd be happy to share whatever you've got.

8/6 First Post

seamoneyfishing is back.

Sometime last fall, there came a time where I had to renew the hosting fees for seamomeyfishing.com, however I wasn't making any money off the site and I said screw it, Ill let it expire. I don't know if I regret letting it expire or not, but now comes a time when I want it back.

So here we are in August 2014. My fishing time is way limited these days since going out and getting a full time job. Now I have to be at work at 5am, 6 days a week... thatll fuck your fishing time right up. I still think about fishing a lot and all I want to do is catch nice fish. I still have all the knowledge I once had, just not the time. I fished like a bonafide retard from 2005 until 2013 in the philly jersey area, places where no sane human would spend their time chasing fish after fish.

Im lucky enough to have some crazy ass friends who still fish like bonafide retards. Where do I start?

Memorial day Sunday was calm as shit on the delaware bay. I know that because I took these pictures

Thats my buddy Romo, and we're on our way out 2 miles into the delaware bay to fish for Black Drum. We had half a bushel of clams and confidence that we could put ourselves over some drum, and we did just that. We caught 3 drum between the 2 of us, with the biggest one going maybe 40 pounds. We didn't get the 60 pound slay ride drum we were after, but we were both satisfied with catching the target species. I posted a video on youtube of 2 of the catches, as well as a cownose ray.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dct1sN_yLbA

Ray you say? The guys shark fishing the beaches right now have been covered up in death rays for the past few weeks, but theres plenty of sharks mixed in. Big sharks this year, many exceeding 9 feet and 300 pounds. Thats a big ass shark! 

I shark fished a few times in June and July, the first trip I made was awesome, I fished with some friends and their children and had triple headers for 3 hours. By the end of the night I was snagging and casting out live bunker, which would get hit minutes after hitting bottom. I lost a very nice ST early in the night, we all had some action around that time. But after midnight the shit went wild and we had schools of bunker pinned to the beach with sharks under them, at one point one came up to the shoreline as we were trying to land a big sandbar. Some of the Sandbar's that night were very large... The largest one, I didn't even go down the beach to check out, because I was so tired from running around, chasing runs and trying to land fish. I did get a very good look at the ~8' ST that our friends son got, I was trying to land it by grabbing it by the tail when it turned 180 and came right at my legs. It happened so quick the only way to avoid ending up with my foot in its mouth was to jump straight ahead from where I was standing, which was over the shark and into the ocean. It was a great night.

The following week, I had plans to guide 2 customers to some sharks, both from Doylestown and had never caught a shark. My buddy Mike came along as first mate. We left at 2:30 in the afternoon, a saturday. I had to work that morning, otherwise we would have left earlier. We bought a bushel of fresh bunker on our way down, straight outta the gillnet. Met up with the guys, fished for 6+ hours, watched guys to our left catch a 6' ST, talked to a friend who was a few beaches away.. said a couple rays, one dude to his left got a big brown. Shitty night, but it was in good company. 

Sharks are probably the most interesting fishery we have right now. It's been a hit or miss summer for everyone I know, some nights they're just not there, but if you hit it right you can catch a monster.. The next paragraph is about monsters.

My buddy who will remain D$ got a 22' contender this year, and my other buddy, Q, bought a 27' century. The 2 of them caravanned out about a mile off the beach and hooked up on ST's real quick one day. I talked to Tan (who was on D$'s boat) on the phone while they were doubled up on "rays", but the rays turned out to be ST's. They got one to the boat, and got this picture. Pretty much a monster, but probably the smallest shark hooked as its the only one to come to the surface, many others have been fought for hours only to be broken off due to equipment failure or using too light of tackle. Q fought one for 2-4 hours depending on who you ask, and eventually said fuck this and broke it off.

The night after I took the 2 guys from Doylestown out, me and Mike met up with our buddy D$, who suggested we sleep on his friends boat, and fish off his boat in the morning. We agreed, and the next day, went out and caught a few very small browns and did battle with a very large ST. We fought it for 2-3 hours on pretty light gear, and eventually it broke our 40lb braid. Theres no use in trying to explain how big it was, basically for the 2.5 hours the shark just held tight. He'd swim one way for 15 minutes, then another way for 30, and finally our gear failed. I have a buddy named Romo who was on vacation at the delaware shore earlier this summer. He has a Hobie which he uses a lot, and I think he used it every day down there. He wasn't getting into any crazy bites, but did make it to the outer wall in the Delaware Bay where he got mostly short blackfish, fluke and a couple triggers. On the last day, him and our friend Mike went out with steel leaders and a new target species, and hooked into sharks "within 5 minutes". It sounds like there are a lot.... I mean a lot of sharks out there. The ones they hooked in their hobies were all big, Im not sure exactly how many it was, but they both fought sharks for hours that day. Romo got awesome, awesome footage of not 1, but 2 big sharks breach the surface while on his yak. Check out the video below, but know that a 2nd video which hasnt been uploaded yet is coming that is slightly better. Thats your summer 2014 inshore shark report. Less sharks on the beaches, but a ton just off the beach.

http://youtu.be/BEsD9R4qAqw?t=3m43s

Flatheads on the Schuylkill have been fishing at an average level all year... no big bites after any of those rains, just inconsistent action and lots of small fish. August is the time though, and my friend James has been doing real well on his boat fishing late nights during the week. This week he caught a 28, 37 and 42lber... Damn James! 40lb flatheads are special fish in the Schuylkill, true beasts of the river, and to do battle with one is usually reserved for those who put in the most time. Out of the group of friends I have flathead fished with since 2007, this is the 3rd or 4th 40 we have ever caught, a 47 in 2012, a 55 in 2013, a 39_14 which is debatably 40 in May of this year, and now a 42 this week. Other 40 pound fish have been caught out of the schuylkill, in all stretches of the river to boot. I believe the PA state record of 48.6 is going to be upped this year, and upped again in following years until we see fish in the 70's. My buddy pointed out to me one night that 4 other states to our west have state record fish in the 70's. I don't know if the schuylkill could produce a 70, as thats a really, really big fish for such a sterile river, but the Susquehanna and Delaware both could easily grow a 70. The Susquehanna especially, way more 40+ pound flatheads come out of the susky than the skuke. The delaware too, I posted a picture awhile back of a 40+lb delaware river Flathead. The guy didn't weigh it but the pic showed a long, girthy fish, easily 40+. These fish are still relatively new to our rivers, and are only growing with time. One night a couple weeks back I was fishing the skuke, got a bite at about 12:20am which turned out to be a high 30's, low 40's pound flathead, but snapped my hook as we were trying to land it. I didnt realize how big it was until just after I lost it. At first glance I said thats a 30. quickly after I said whoa thats 35. After it busted our hook we realized damn that coulda been 45, and my final guess on it was somewhere between 35 and 45... Im waiting to see another 50lb flathead, and this wasn't it. Still would of been my 2nd biggest fish, but damn. oh well. I have a hunch that the 42 caught this week is that same fish, but I base that on nothing other than they were about the same size, in the same stretch of river. Here are pics of james with a 37 and 42. The Schuylkill Produces.... finally.

Bowfins, snakeheads, bass, pickerel, amongst other things are biting OK over the bridge in Jersey. My buddy James lives on the Jersey side of the Delaware, and uses his hobie to fish a lot of smaller waters over there. I've known james for about a year now, it wasn't until last year that we all networked together and started trading spots and catching fish together. In the last year, New Jersey has been my primary freshwater fishing home if Im fishing for any kind of gamefish. Recently Ive fished with James and Romo on some random waterbodies where we've had slowish action for snakeheads and Bowfins. We target these fish with jumpfrogs that james buys from a guy in Malaysia. These lures are cool, they look like a popper but have a skirted double hook in the back, rather than 2 sets of tebles. The one day I was lucky enough to come across a snakehead fryball while paddling some spatterdock. It was like catching a snakehead off a fryball, just casted over it, popped it a few times, bam, 28" snakehead. It was a skinny fish, 6lbs, but I was pumped. That day we ran into a Bass Pro named Grant Goldbeck, he was prefishing the some waterbody that we were snakehead fishing. We talked to him for a good while and went our seperate ways, but it was a cool experience. I just looked at the standings for todays 1st day of weigh ins, and Goldbeck has 1 fish at 2_15. Hopefully he uses the information we gave him to win the tournament! Ha, fat chance. We've also been targeting bowfin with the jumpfrogs but are having a tough time getting the fish in the boat. We can get good hits from fins on top but they are tricky bastards with their 100000000 years of evolution. Still, got a decent video of a fin hitting my frog, missing it, then coming back 2 seconds later and eventually taking the double hook right off my jumpfrog. Catching fins is far easier with cutbait. Heres a cutbait fin, some jumpfrog fish, and a video of a lost fin on a jumpfrog.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfDSHUtRwNI

more to come.