It’s a Jungle Out There by Dave Spendiff

Posted on April 11, 2018 by VHFC

I made a trip to the Oyster Creek outflow hoping to pick up a few stripers. Mill creek was 45 degrees, the bay 42.5 and Oyster creek 53 when I arrived and 56 when I departed around 3pm. I marked very few fish and had a slow day as did the other two boats there. A couple fishing from the bank very near the RT 9 bridge however were catching fish on almost every cast. I wasn’t close enough to see if they were white perch or school stripers – hope they were perch because all of them ended up in a bucket. While fishing closer to the bay, I saw a splash out of corner of my eye and turned to see an airborne bunker flying for his life. As he hit the water, just ahead of huge moving hump of water, there was an explosion and he leapt straight up into the air only to come back down to the mouth of something real big. A second later the attacker stuck its head above the surface to finish inhaling the bunker. It was a seal! I’ve seen them in Great Bay and around Barnegat Inlet, but never on the west side of the bay. What a sight!!! Ended up catching a 15 and 20” striper with another memory of the saltwater jungle.

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Fishing Facts

Of the fifty United States, thirty-eight have a striped-bass record. New Jersey has the largest striped-bass record—a 78-pound 8·ounce whopper that was caught in 1982. The state with the smallest striped-bass record is Iowa. That landlocked striper weighed only 9 pounds 4 ounces and was caught in 1983.

There’s something fishy about beer these days. Fish Tail Ale is popular as ever, and New Jersey’s Flying Fish Brewery is one of the state’s largest specialty breweries. There’s also Washington’s Wild Salmon Organic Pale Ale, Florida’s Land Shark beer, Delaware’s Dogfish Head beer, and two versions of Stingray beer—a lighter version from the Cayman Islands and a dark beer from Canada.

The triangle fly is probably the most unusual of saltwater flies. It’s one of the few, if not only, flies tied to a treble hook. It’s also barely a fly at all, because hardly any material is used. It is complete after tying the two straw pearl twinkle flashes and the tiny tuft of natural squirrel, leaving an entire hook fully exposed. Incredibly this barebacked treble fly is a knockout when it comes to sea trout.