As someone who’s done 95% of my saltwater fishing on the Texas coast, I had no ideawhat was in store when I joined Ryan Gallagherin their striped bass mission on the Jersey Shore.Being a college athlete at a small school outside of Philadelphia, there are only a handful ofopportunities to get out on the water for a morning or an afternoon.So when I got the text fromRyan saying he was heading up to Jersey for a weekend send, let me just say it was an offer Icouldn’t refuse.
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The two items which aren’t necessary, but extremely handy, are a pair of waders and astripping basket: the former to keep you dry and not freezing, and the latter to aid with linemanagement by keeping it out of the surf and/or jetty rocks. “Do you have waders?” was actuallythe first question Ryan asked me when we were talking about the trip. The forecast called for aminor cold front to move in with moderate winds out of the NNE and temperatures moving intothe low fifties. Our plan was to fish the beachfront at sunrise to catch the incoming tide and shiftto the bay side if the bait wasn’t there. Having only woken up at 4:00 a.m. for duck hunting, Iwasn’t sure if I had it in me to make the two-hour trek, but a Wawa coffee and the anticipation ofblitzing stripers was enough to get me going.
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The wind, which was definitely stiffer than called for, slapped me in the face as I steppedout of the truck and began to put on my waders and rig up my fly rod. Arriving at the shore justafter the crack of dawn, I met up with Ryan and company, eyes bloodshot from the all-nighterthey pulled the previous night. Based on the exhausted and unenthused look on Ryan’s face, itseemed that the fishing had yet to pick up throughout the night. Nevertheless, he set me up with afive-inch, pink and white clouser minnow, and we headed out in search of anything fishy.
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One of the first things I noticed about the orientation of the shoreline was its steep gradein comparison to Texas beaches. Just a few steps out and I was in knee-deep water. The secondthing I noticed as the sun came up was the New York City skyline to my left; it’s not every daythat I fish with the Statue of Liberty in the background. After a fair amount of blind casts, themorning started off quite slow. The schools of baitfish and feeding stripers had yet to show up,but my hopes were still high. On one particular cast, I felt my line get heavier as I was strippingit back. Thinking I’d foul-hooked a grocery bag, I was surprised to see a fish on the end of myline. With some identification help from Ryan, I found out that I’d caught my first fluke.
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A couple of flukes later with no signs of stripers, we decided to change things up and fishthe bay side as high tide was approaching. After a short walk off the beaten path and past severalpedestrians, we once again spread out in hopes of coming across some hungry fish. This side ofthe peninsula was more protected from the wind making it easier to see into the water and lookfor a bait fish called bunker (or menhaden or pogies depending on where you’re from). Besides some nervous water and small pods of shimmering bunker, we weren’t convinced that we werein the right spot. After incessantly blind casting to no avail, Ryan and his friends decided to callit quits on their eighteen-hour fishing bender. The low-sixties water temperature just wasn’t coldenough for the fish to come close to the shore and into the bay. By no means was it a successfultrip in terms of stripers caught, but seeing a new fishery and learning about the behavior of thesefish and how they respond in certain conditions made the drive worthwhile. I look forward togetting back out there more frequently next winter to find the stripers that eluded me in 2021 andexperience the magic that brings hundreds of anglers to the Jersey Shore.
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