Well, another weekend of fishing finally came and with it some pretty nasty weather to start each day.
Saturday...myself, Charlie, and Tom E. were greeted with some "passing showers" mixed with lightning and thunder that kept us at the ramp for a short while before it cleared up enough to allow us to depart. Meanwhile Sam, Tom K., and Craig were prepping for the maiden voyage of Sam's new boat in less than ideal conditions! Looks like a crash course to start his boating career! :)
We headed out of Edison while Sam's crew headed out of Keyport with plans of meeting up at GK to net some bunker and cruise for some stripers. Well that was the plan, until we ran into some whitecaps in the river! Fortunately we located some bait on the way to GKs before it got really rough and managed to net and snag enough for the day. Meanwhile, we were filtering calls from Craig who sounded like he was in a NASA wind tunnel in their Victory at Sea expedition to GK. They managed to snag some bunker over there but were getting pummeled by the wind and rough water.
Charlie opted to hit up a windbroken section of water and skip the GK adventure. It turned out to be a good decision, as we anchored up and started chunking...and within minutes were on some fish...ahhh those yellow eyed devils! I had the first two hookups, losing both at the boat I believe to biteoffs. Love using Fluoro and having blues chew through it like butter...nice! Shortly afterwards, Charlie and Tom were in on the action and it was non-stop blues and biteoffs. Fortunately Charlie had a stock of 100s of hooks! And YES, we needed them at the rate we were going through em!
Around 9:30AM, Charlie hooked into a decent fish, getting him to the boat in short order to surprise us with a nice striper! Ahhh, so there are a few here! Excellent! Well that pumped us up, but that's about all we got out of it as the blues abused us for the rest of the day...not another striper. I lost count of how many blues we had, but they put a serious dent in Charlie's hook stock! RELOAD!!! :D
We pulled the hook and headed in to check out some other spots on the way in. We came across a nice pod of bunker and decided to do a few drifts. Again, nothing but yellow eyed demons! But it was cool to watch them come up to the livies and slash through the water chomping at em! Very cool! Poor bunker...those blues are vicious! :D
Then we headed into the river but nada doing, spent a short while anchored at one spot before calling it a day after going biteless for about 45 minutes.
Here's a few shots from the day!
Charlie and Tom meeting up at 7-Eleven before our departure!
The local celebrity, cowboying up for a photo!
7-Eleven bagel and NOS, Breakfast of Champions!
Tom, forgot his slicks...wondering if he can fit into some that Charlie had laying around! Contemplating the SQUEEZE! :D
Rain, rain, rain
Backing her up...my first time backing a trailer in! Sweet! Sorry about hitting that piling dude, glad you had an extra prop!!! Haha just kidding! :D
Not sure what's going on in this picture...I just went to drop off the trailer and came back to this...a lot of bending over going on over there!
Tom livin it up!
Charlie, ready to roll!
Classic picture of the morning...this seagull couldn't take the pressure anymore and hung itself...poor bugger!
That or an osprey was laying out some voodoo!
Skies clearing up finally!
Tom, contemplating...looking kind of worried, maybe WE should be worried. I'll call this "The Warning" look!
Da bunks!
Swing!!! And a miss!
Not this time...FISH ON!
Awww yeah, bring him in nice and slow...he's sluggish like and taking drag!
Ummmm, uhhh...nice MALE!
Then Larry, Moe, and Curly showed up! :D
And all of a sudden, a familiar and quite deadly waft of air had Charlie and I looking at each other asking, "Did you just *$#@*&( yourself?"
But, no no no...we missed that WARNING sign up in the bow!
Mr. Knocks Out An Entire Starboard Side With A Single Squeak Strikes Again!!! :D
After the air clears...Charlie regains his balance and adequate oxygen intake just in time to grab his rod with the drag screaming out!
A short battle and he lands our only striper of the day!
Tom's into the yellow-eyed devils!
On the deck!
Apparently that Paul Newman sauce is still working it's magic!
Does Grunden make a HAZMAT suit by chance? Haha
Charlie with another slob chomper!
Tom into another one...Hollywood Rod!!!
Golden Energy...
The boys, loungin as we head back in to try another spot...
Quite breezy...oddly doesn't look half as bad as it was.
The boys, back at the dock...final pic from Saturday!
Alright, so I head home...clean up all my gear and head to bed for a quick powernap debating on what to do on Sunday.
I figure I'll sleep in, maybe hit up a trout stream...that was until I got a last minute call from Charlie to go again in the AM with Craig on board too!
No problem, sounds like a plan...so I just stay in bed and get a solid 10 hours of sleep...awesome!
Craig, Charlie, and I meet up at 7-Eleven grab some snackage and head on off to the ramp. Again, more "passing showers"...should clear out by 8AM...yeah OK...more like rained all day long! Ah, it's OK, the fish don't mind! ;)
We headed back on out, came across the same school of bunker and threw some nets and snags and filled up the livewell before shooting across the bay over to the GK. We netted and snagged a few more and saw a few familiar boats over that way...light rain the whole time, so I kept camera action to a minimum...don't worry there are plenty later! :)
Back out to the bay, we move over to fish a channel edge marking fish right away...dropped the hook and started chunking. It didn't take long, mere minutes and we were in blues for the next 3 hours. Craig claims he had two striper runoffs with untouched bait, I think the cigs are going to his head! :D
We continue to get abused by blues, fish after fish after fish...hook after hook after hook...gone! Man they are relentless, but a ton of fun to fight...they never give up! We hung out for a bit hoping for a striper, then opted to move to another area.
We marked some fish and decided to drive some livies, and shortly afterwards all threw of us had runoffs from stripers, whiffing like pros, and coming back with scuffed up bunker but no blues teeth! Drifted again, rinse, repeat...same thing, whiffolas! Well we know they're there, so we opt to anchor up and chunk hoping to draw them near...but we just drew in the blues...more crazy action. We were close to a channel edge as a tanker came through and for fear of getting sucked into the prop and instantly submerged (LOL), we pulled the hook and headed to another area! :D
Again, marked a ton of bait and fish beneath, dropped the hook but landed off the spot as the tide started to change. Lots of salad in the area, and unproductive with little action, so we picked up and headed on in for the day.
Here's a few pics from the day!
Scrub!!!!!!
Charlie, doing a jig?
Another classic Scrubby expression!
Da boat...purty!
Charlie, crab master!!!
Conditions...not bad, far less than predicted
What are these? Sea lice?
TANGLE AGENT!
Another one!
Slob blues, all you can eat!!!
Fish finder! What's what?
Found some new winter flounder grounds! :D
Back at the parking lot...maniac in SHORTS! Hi, it's like 45 in the morning!
I wanna fly away!!!
OK, that's all folks...another crazy weekend out on the water!
Great time as always, huge thanks to Charlie for taking us out!
Seriously, I'm going to break my striper slump and catch one this year! :D
Until next time...
