Special outing for me yesterday (12/7) joining Dan’s wife, Cindy, her son, Joey, and his friend Scott on the Ludwig’s boat to chase striped bass. My last time fishing with Dan was doing the same thing with him and Joey almost exactly two years ago. Dan was an avid fisherman and VHFC member who passed in March, 2024 leaving us too soon.
With sparse and frankly non-motivating reports to go on, we decided to head out Saturday morning and explore. We immediately ran into birds at the mouth of the Barnegat inlet so stopped to throw topwater and shallow swimming lures but nothing happened and we had to move on. Weather was cold but winds were mild and ocean conditions good so we headed north cruising up to Seaside before seeing any real signs of life. Up there we encountered a much-diminished fleet (thank goodness) but it included notable charter boats including the Miss Barnegat Light, Super Chic, and the Mary M IV. Boats and bunker were pushed in close to shore on the south side of Seaside and Joey nuzzled us in just to the north of the loosely packed fleet.
I quickly had a striper slapping my doc spook but didn’t hook up. We tried a variety of plugs and jigs and I finally connected with a chartreuse swim shad catching a fat 31” keeper. Joey switched over to the same and hooked up about 10 minutes later. After that nothing so we decided to try trolling. Joey worked a relatively short stretch at the southern end of Seaside trolling high-low Mojo’s and we caught an additional five fish with Cindy landing two of them (her first stripers!).
After a cold and challenging but great day we headed back to the docks. I feel sure that Dan was looking down, happy and proud.
