Fishing at Sundown

By Capt. Robby Barradale
Hello, fellow fisherpeople! After a few weeks of high winds and rough seas the weather gods finally smiled and the weekend turned out beautiful. On Sunday afternoon on the
we had a group from North Plainfield consisting mostly of friends and family from the post office who opted to take a stab at porgy fishing. With no fresh reports we decided to go to the Sandy Hook Reef and we were hoping that the rough bottom area had settled down after the blow and now held a resident population of hungry porgies. The fishfinder showed that the fish were indeed there; they simply were not eating! Our people did catch a fair number of big, tasty sea bass, Unfortunately the sea bass season doesn’t begin until Oct. 22 so they all had to be released. We relocated to a spot closer to home and the anchor and the sun both seemed to go down at the same time, and within minutes the bite was on as the rods bent regularly under the weight of nice sized feisty porgies. Our mates filleted and bagged the fish on the ride in and the customers left the dock happy. All in all, this was a truly nice trip. Capt. Derek on the Fisher Price IV was nearby trying to catch stripers and finding the action slow but it sounded like he also saw a dramatic improvement when it got dark.

The Bayshore Saltwater Flyrodders held their “3 Fly Contest” Sunday morning at Sandy Hook under great conditions including a light west breeze. The entry fee for this fly rod event is three of your own hand-tied flies. It is winner take all, no cash involved with fun being the main objective. Tim Semler grabbed the win by landing three hickory shad but all the guys were frustrated by false albacore streaking along the beach and rejecting every offering. I was sorry I missed the “Awards Ceremony” and lunch at Off The Hook because I know there had to be a lot of good-natured jokes about the prowess of this crew waving the long rods on the beach. Trolling bunker spoons early in the morning has been drawing strikes from striped bass in the bay with mid-day fishing not nearly as productive. Try working the channel depths when the sun is high. Stripers do not have eyelids (or Costa sunglasses!) so it is more comfortable for them to go deep to avoid the bright sunlight. Eel drifters have been catching stripers at night, just not consistently yet and the massive schools of bluefish that we always counted on at this time of year simply have not shown up (yet?). Ling and cod continue to please anglers probing the deeper structure and I just received some unconfirmed reports that yellowfin, longfin tuna, and mahi-mahi were caught in the canyon which is great to hear as we could not get out there for weeks.
The Bob Kamienski Striper Tournament, hosted by the Hi-Mar Striper Club, will begin with a captains meeting at Bahrs featuring lots of prizes at 6 p.m., Friday, Oct. 23. Fishing will start at 8 p.m. and run until noon Sunday, Oct. 25 with a two biggest fish format. Fish as much or as little as you like, and if you could donate a fish for the awards ceremony at 1 p.m. Sunday at Bahrs, the staff will gladly cook it up as part of the refreshments. Bob was the driving force behind this tourney for years, organizing and implementing fresh ideas and fine-tuning it until this was recognized as the premier fall striper event in N.J. We lost Bob last winter and he definitely is irreplaceable but we hope he would be proud of the way we are continuing his legacy. RIP our friend, we miss you… See you here next week, till then, Hook Em Up!