Found the Stripers off the Highlands

[bgreene]

Ran up the beach from Belmar and found the birds off the Highlands in around 60' of water.

Jigged, and trolled quite a few different bait profiles and caught a total of approx. 12 fish with two solid keepers to 34" and the rest shorts.

Even had a few double headers on the tubes. Great day, calm seas.

[netkeeper]

Did you chase the birds at all? We were in the general vicinity working the groups birds around Scotland and Ambrose on Soft Plastics and Metals and the 3 of us had close to ~100 fish from 7 am til noon. Under the birds, there fish marks galore.

[bgreene]

We must have caught 5,000 fish..........kidding.

Yeh, we chased the birds quite a bit, and marked some huge schools that were on the move.

Didn't really try casting top water lures though - mostly trolled and jigged.
The fish were easily spooked by the boat traffic, and we found it best to ease around, not run and gun too much.

[Geno]

Glad to see you had a great day. My buddy bailed on me Friday night. Hopefully they will still be here next weekend.

[netkeeper]

We were fishing marked fish sometimes 100 yards away from the birds. We were just the birds to hone in on areas to look. Many times they just came up on us on the drift and started rolling around us.