Exposures - October 2018 - II

The overcast morning of the 21st. Against the bitter odds of a very windy weather forecast (or even better judgement, for that matter) I was back on the trail in search of tail. After all, October only comes once.

Standing at 6AM in a NNW wind of 26mph, it was quasi-manageable to make worthwhile casts into deep water.  What little hope we shared of fish showing in the surf literally blew away by 10AM after winds grew sustained to 38mph and shifted N.  A relentless sandblasting and pelting to the body and face was the knockout punch.  

Even with rod held high, airborne sand was striking at my reel and guides with the similar sound of precipitating ice pellets, much like this accosted angler must have experienced.

Before the blow shifted N, anglers gave the churning flood-tide a go with a NW wind pushing to their backs.  One or two whales made passage close to shore, periodically revealing movement across the channel by their misty exhalations erupting like geysers from the white-capped sea, and a determined seal bobbed through the tide that morning.  Not a single fish was landed, that I saw.

If you don't go, you just won't know..

Proximity.

817 feet of tanker ship silently slips out to sea on an ebbing tide.

The intoxicating, banded reward of a surfcaster's nighttime obsession.

A beached bay anchovy that made away from the surf's shallow wash of blitzing Hickory Shad and feeding schoolie-sized Stripers.

Sun sets as a microburst rolls-in from the west.  I considered this my last "easy" shot at surf-caught Albies for Oct. '18.  With the sea-stirring winds of the season's first Nor' Easter only 36 hours out from this particular evening, any shot at hooking greenbacks from the surf after this outing would be particularly welcomed, but not probable.  There's always the first week of November, if the weather cooperates, and the Anchovies stay in close to the sand..  

October's Hunter Moon rises to greet anglers who were tight to schoolie-sized Stripers, one after another, for a better part of dusk.

For the first time that I witnessed this fall, pods of medium-sized Bunker schooled the slack tide out-back.  Hopefully, these fish are an indication of good things to follow - as in, large Stripers on the hunt of these arrowhead ripples seen meandering within a moving tide.   

With a Nor' Easter carving-up the coast overnight, it was a relief to finally see an abundance of baitfish outback.  Especially, these guys - "the most important fish in the sea."

Micros and schoolies were the abundant contenders lurking within many an October tide that I was able to fish.  With exception, only a few large Stripers were taken that I knew of.    

Exposures - June 2018

Surface poppers are for those warm afternoons in June along the beaches of the Jersey coast where Bunker pods instinctively capture a fisherman's attention. 

Sunset along the bubbling backwash of a sandy beach scarp I frequent.

A cool hat I found washed-up along the banks of the Navesink late one night.  The Stripers bit, and that was my quick fix.  Prior to this find, I didn't know that there was such a charter operated by a Capt. Kevin Halek out of Atlantic Highlands.  (Kevin, if this happens to be your own hat, I'll gladly return it to you.  I hope the fishing has been treating you well.)

Anglers burning the midnight oil watch from above for any signs of Stripers rising from the bridge's shadow lines under the pods of Bunker that were plentiful for weeks in the river system. 

On one late night this month while working the ebbing tide, heat lightning was flashing over the horizon at a rate over 100 strikes per minute.  A subtle sign that summer was here, and bass would soon be further north.   

Roadway light reflections captured on the ebbing and circulating tide of the Shrewsbury River.

.... and thankfully, there were bass

I dedicate the lyrics of Chuck Berry's song "You Can't Catch Me" to the Jersey surf-caught, Bunker pod blitzing June Striper.  I sure didn't catch them this year.  Beach access & parking restrictions, appropriate timing, habitat & structure loss, wind & weather, work, impulse, you name it.. doesn't matter I suppose if the fish never move within casting range to begin with.  

Chasing after 35 lb.+ blitzing Stripers from the sand is as exciting as it gets for the surfcaster.  I shot this photo in haste, and is deceiving in that the surf was actually about 2+ft. in height that afternoon (for scale).  The dark band is a quickly-fleeing pod of adult-sized Bunker.  As I expressed in a prior post (http://amofins.blogspot.com/2017/10/exposures-october-2017.html), at the more rare times such as these, it's especially difficult to suddenly make shooting photos a priority over casting to giant, fast-moving fish.

Some nights, it is not always a fish that finds the retrieve of my lure, but rather the infamous Rubbery Bryozoan (Alcyonidium species).

Exposures - May 2018

If it were the yellow-eyed, gator Bluefish who won the coin toss of April 2017 for inshore dominance, surfcasters alike must unanimously agree that this year’s win landed “tails-up” in forthright favor of the winter-months-missed, migrating tribes of Striped Bass.  Much like the Blues of the year prior, flaunting the shallows of the shoreline this season were the splayed caudals of linesiders seeking-out prey seemingly everywhere, foraging on tides rising and ebbing, and later, at times, even biting on the tails of Menhaden that I first observed in local waterways as inconceivably early as February 28^th.  In the weeks that followed that date, snow fell upon the backs of these surface-breaching Bunker on more than three stormy occasions, but their sudden arrival left me wondering just how far-off in time the ancient chase of scaly predators would be.

As with the inception of every first trip to the salt and every commencement of first cast, I found myself following in the footsteps of preparatory ritual.  Reels were cleaned, greased, and re-spooled, knots tied, and leaders strung as certain, recurring thoughts were finally and physically loomed-of and focused upon over the clamped jaws of a dutiful vise, specifically, those concerned with the whereabouts and timing of my quarries’ arrival.  Again, I was a man one-step closer to a briny christening. 

Like most things in Nature, there blossoms one day when suddenly something appears, and then there is no turning back.  This year, such was the mass-invasion of 34"+sized Stripers to our waters at about mid-April.  The all-important breeders of the genepool.  Not only did the average sand-straddling surfcaster seem to eat his cake and have it too, talk of the town was the once-in-a-lifetime landing of a jaw-dropping 58lb. river-migrating matriarch from the shallows of the Raritan on the month’s full moon.  Social media and staple fishing website forums each concurred to the consistency of catches.  Needless to say, just like the incalculable membership of this strong showing of April fish, an equally inestimable number of cameras and cell phone phameras were kept busy capturing the mesmerizing profiles of fish hoisted both day and night, sagging of stuffed white bellies while held outstretched or suspended in-arms before an angler’s approving smile.  This was it, and as angling author Ted Leeson wrote best, “something important had continued.” 

...a tight bond where two synthetic contenders are being drawn to join together in unison, to never falter or slip, whose embodiment represents the unification of  old and new, where the opposing pairing of nylon monofilament coils in a firmly-wrapped, knotted collusion to the polyethylene fibers of Dyneema-based braid, forming the essential unity which is the very physical link serving to connect this man to the faraway saltwater depths of my fevered passions.

My lifeline empowering me on this perennial quest for peace. 
I will vow to push forward for more, to endeavor, and ultimately, triumph as a man humbled by his surroundings, fully-aware that if a fish happens to flop upon the bubbling sand of the surf, then all the better for me. 

"You can’t catch fish if you don’t dare go where they are" - Norman Maclean

The season's first - oh so good!

What one cast giveth, another taketh away.  Simply said, a beachwalk find.

You may only be a surfcaster, but you are a surfcaster dedicated to experiencing the bounty of riches Nature serves for you to feast upon like that of a ravenous gourmand.

Let 'em go, let 'em grow

A Mounting, Migratory Manifestation

May Sax's mounting, migratory manifestations during this month of May brave as the swimming envy of your every neglected exchange of nocturnal retrieve and prelude of sudden, striking anticipation.  

School Portraits

When school is finally back in session and the year's Bass and new classes arrive en masse, I eagerly anticipate those days that I may volunteer my time and reeling-devotion in order to frame the matriculated, returning undersea ranks under a lens, shooting their updated portraits for the annual yearbook that may document yet another salty season on the sand straddled before the Atlantic's wave of uncertain discoveries.