This trip was scheduled for November 2012, but we all know who paid us a visit that changed everything. The deposit was held over for this year and a Striper Outing was planned for May 24, 2013 aboard the Searcher II out of Barnegat Light.
After a few cancellations, a few additions and countless days of concern about the forecasted weather and seas,15 VHFC members and family met and went fishing. The captain’s plan was to fish for blue fish on our way out of the inlet and then head North up to the “bathing beach” area of Island Beach State Park to snag & drop and live line bunker for stripers. As it turns out, the diamond jigs we started out fishing for blues with became the lure we had on all day. There were no blue fish as we left the inlet so we headed North. Now those angry seas we were all concerned about turned out to be smooth swells, no chop at all, no winds, no thunderstorms. Apparently the forecast scared off loads of other fishermen as we saw virtually no other boats all day.
We stopped on a couple of bunker pods the captain had marked, but none of us saw any evidence that they were around…nothing on the surface at all. We moved from one spot to another, fished in tight to the beach, away from the beach and as far North as Seaside Park – NOTHING! This jigging was getting a bit boring allowing Jeff Barnhart to develop and perfect an “over the shoulder” jigging technique that paid off a bit later. The captain headed out into deeper water and we ended up drifting around a number of, what we assumed were, lobster pot buoys. Still jigging with the diamond jigs, we hear “FISH ON”. Joe Marone caught a nice black fish, had to go about 5-6lbs! Who knew you can catch tog on a diamond jig!?
The action started to pick up as many of us started hooking up on black sea bass. Keepers and shorts came over the side and the “over the shoulder” jigging technique paid off as Jeff caught the largest sea bass of the day with Fred Bauer’s a close second and Bill Dabney also pulling in a contender. Someone caught a decent sized spinney dogfish which was cut up for bait that we never got to use. It was around 1:15 and we started back for the inlet and stopped to work some bird action at the inlet. One of our guys hooked up on a little 2-3lb blue before we headed for the dock.
Even though the wind kicked up late in the trip and we had a few periods of rain, the weather was more than tolerable. The ocean water temperature had dropped 5 degrees since I was out last Friday when bunker was everywhere. The trip was not what we were all expecting, but the captain spared no fuel or effort trying to put us on stripers or fish generally. As for me, I was really looking forward to my first striper of the year. That didn’t happen, but I had a hell of a good time trying to catch one with 14 other guys trying as well. I don’t know about the rest of our group, but I sure didn’t have anything else to do today that would have been more fun.
Oh, by the way, the black sea bass filets were WONDERFUL!!!
Thanks to all who participated!
