Fishing Journal 2015_09-19

With the days getting shorter and the nights getting cooler the Bass have turned on in the Manasquan river.
Its Friday Sept 18th and Chris Johnstone had reached out about fishing early Saturday morning. Early Saturday morning meaning 1:00 AM! For me the Manasquan river is an hour drive each way and was hesitant as previous trips have resulted in very windy conditions. If there is one thing disliked over everything else it is driving to a fishing spot over an hour to turn around and drive an hour back.

After studying weather reports of a SE wind at 5 and the temps were going to remain in the low 60’s it was a no brainer. Sent Johnstone a text at 5 PM I’m in. Only problem was most of the tackle shops were closed but fortunately he managed to find live eels!

Our plan was to meet up 0n the water at 1:30 AM to fish the slack and then outgoing tide. However it was not easy to find sleep for a decent power nap. I remember looking at the clock reading 10:45 and had to be up at 12 am. My alarm chimed in at 12 AM and making a bad decision decided to take another 10 minutes. Well that turned into a half hour. Getting up at 12:30 and running to pack up my cold water ice and a few other necessities. Finally out the door and stopping at a store to get some coffee and a bite to eat then proceeded to realize my truck was low on gas.

After the fuel stop and about 45 minutes had gone by and Chris is texting me that he is catching fish. Im 10 mins away. Arriving at the Glimmer Glass drop in scrambling to get my gear lashed bungeed and leashed. This time around had rigged all of my rods prior to packing up. Great choice as many times getting stuck tying rigs and lures on in the dark attempting to be speedy which doesn’t mix with tying anything in the dark! Prior rigging saved a lot of time and.

Another huge time saver is the Torqeedo Ultralight 403 which allows me to maintain a speed of 3.5 mph. Since the fishing area location was not far from the drop-in the extra usage on the battery would not matter. The tide had started outgoing so that also helped getting out of the drop in area but slowed a little getting up past the railroad bridge. The area of the Manasquan river that we Eel nights for Stripers is a very dangerous area of the river. Between boat traffic and the typical 3-4 knot tide makes this place only for experienced kayak anglers. If you plan to fish these types of areas that are traveled by boats and have bridges I would suggest taking the Coast Guard Boaters Safety Course or at least familiarize yourself with safety and on water navigation. The main safety concern is visibility. On kayaks we sit very low. Having a 360 degree bright light such as the Yak Attack visi pole is a necessity. That along with the Yak Attack Nite Stripe brings up the visibility.

Meeting up with Chris he already landed a nice 31″ Bass. He gave me the 3 eels that he picked up for me. Using a custom heavy moderate action rod and ad Abu Garcia 7000 C3 along with a eel rig that consisted of an inline 3oz egg sinker beads a swivel 40lb floro and a 5/0 Gami Octopus Hook.  To hook a live eel using a rag grab the eel from the back of his head. Its best to keep the eels on ice as it will slow them down making it more manageable. These eels weren’t really that lively so it was easy to hook one through both lips from the bottom jaw through the top. You need to immediately get them into he water as they will squirm and tie themselves into a ball with the leader and everything. This we call an eel ball. Once you have an eel ball you most likely will be retying a new rig. Getting the ell into the water asap the eel will swim and not tie knots.

About 10 seconds after the sinker hit the bottom  a bass hit and hes on! Great fight but turned out to be a small bass at 24″. After removing the hook a head boat moved in. It docks right near the bridge were fishing and of coarse spooked all of the fish. I had one more on after an hour and Chris had 1 also. Ended up catching a few snags also.

I decided to change up bait after we ran out of eels and switched to a storm shad. Kept hearing the mullet jumping by the bridge ice breakers. Threw a few casts there and bammm fish on. A pretty good fight the fish turned out to be a 25″ bluefish. After that fish fishing seemed to die out. Boat traffic was increasing as it was now 5:30 am. We decided quit fishing and not too long after reaching land the fog rolled in thick. It was perfect timing to quit!

As it gets cooler the fishing will heat up even more at this location. I am looking forward to fishing there again in the near future.