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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