Thanksgiving Weekend Striper Marathon-11/25, 26, & 29

[MAKO19]

11/25
With the holiday weekend upon us I took a few days off work to sneak in as many trips as possible. Wednesday was the first shot and with some morning fog and the wind still howling pretty good out of the E-NE we delayed the trip a few hours hoping it would calm down and some of the fog to lift. Well it never really did calm down and we made the 3 mile run from TI dead into the tight 3-4’s coming straight out of the East and arrived at the lump where there was a fleet both jigging and trolling. Our decision to delay the trip ended up burning us as we missed the bite by about an hour and could only manage about a dozen 10-12 lb slammer blues that bit on both the stretch lures as well as the umbrella rigs.
11/26
With much better weather predicted for Thursday we were able to sneak in a half day trip and get a nice early start. We ran right to where the fish were on Wednesday but again it seemed like only a slow pick for the boats that were there with lots of small fish being caught. After a few hours of trolling we got a call from a friend who had a good bite about 9 miles down the beach so we picked up and ran there. As soon as we got there the fish finder lit up like I have never seen it this year. We had fish on the sand eel umbrella rig as soon as it hit the bottom which ended up being 2 Stripers, one at 34” and the other a short that was released. After this it was non-stop chaos with lots and I mean LOTS of slammer Blues and short bass but we did manage another 28” keeper before we had to call it a day at noon to get in and cleaned up and still make it to dinner on time.
11/29
Sunday we were lucky enough to have more nice weather and I opted to try a no name lump off Avalon that I only fished once this year on a hunch that there would be some fish there. Well, apparently I wasn’t the only one that had this idea as there were probably a dozen boats jigging and trolling when I got there. We got up on the troll and immediately starting marking fish but it was just a slow pick of Stripers and Blues. We managed 2 keeper fish at 32” and 36” on the chartreuse/blue stretch 25 plus a few throwbacks and a decent amount of the large Blues that just don’t want to leave the area! After a few hours picking at the Bass and Blues the bite completely died and I opted to run north to where some fish were caught in the morning. Friends I was trolling with opted to run south to where we had them on Thanksgiving. Wrong move on my part as I only managed releasing a 24” flounder on the stretch while my friends ended getting on the Bass hot and heavy to the south.
These trips were nothing stellar like we have been experiencing this year but we had some fun and put a few fish in the box. Looking at last year’s log it appears we have at least 6 weeks left of good Bass fishing and the way things are going this year I would not be surprised if the bite goes right through January!

[MAKO19]

I was only able to take a few pics of the machine during the chaos.

[zar2754]

way to go gary.

that screen is what every fishermen dreams about

we didnt have marks like that all day, but we did have some pretty good readings on the machine on the lumps off of cape may.

the fish were there but very finicky to bite.

i drop a live spot down one drift as we were diamond jigging and had a small bass on it immediatly

but every drift there after the bluefish and dogfish would destroy the spot before the stripers could get to it...

have you had any dogfish issues were you've been fishing?

[MAKO19]

have you had any dogfish issues were you've been fishing?

Yes I have. As soon as I find marks like that trolling and drop a jig down it seems like I get nothing but dog fish. However, if we continue to troll we will get bass and blues. Thank God and dogs don't respond well to the lures, the blues alone are enough of a pain in the ass!

[zar2754]

believe it or not i even had a dog on a jig.

endangered? ha , i think not.