Raritan Bay 05/13/05

[lockjaw]

I know some of you guys venture or are from the north......Awesome trip for my first time out this year. Bass bit throughout the entire incoming. Of course we went through about 30 hooks on the yellow eyed demons. Wind against tide when the tide turned and we only caught a few more before calling it a day. Only managed one fish over 34" but lost a couple that I'm sure would've made the cut. Best part was that there was not another boat in sight until Playing Hookey showed up around 11:00. What a great day!

[Fishfinder]

Lockjaw...Myself and another boat went down saturday for the day for our first trip this year. We headed over to Old Orchard shoal around 9:00am and there was about 75 boats scattered around. After 2 hours of non stop bluefish action we went over toward Great Kills looking for some bunker schools and were able to chase a couple of small schools around and snag about 15. We went back out and anchored up. Still nothing but blues. Around 3:00 most of the fleet decided to go home. I really didn't see any striper action on anybody's boat. BAM!!! we got a 33" on a bunker head. Then another 33". Bam!!! a nice 17 pound 36". Ended up with 5 stripers total and about 20-30 blues up to 10 pound. Must have tied 30 hooks too. I think the striper action was related to everybody else leaving...less boat traffic. That's a strange place to fish with the tides. There never seems to be any tide movement even when it should be. Any breeze at all seems to control the direction the boat is anchored not the tide. My buddy's boat next to me started hitting nothing but stripers right under his boat around 4:00pm and ended up with 20 to 35" on clams. Up untill that point they had non-stop bluefish action all day. Where were you guys fishing at?

[RodFather]

Great reports guys, keep them coming. Glad you both had plenty of action. What is the water temp up that way?

[lockjaw]

FF,

I was south west of you still in Jersey. 13' of water. Way ta bail on 'em at Old Orchard. You're right, the tide always is goofy over there.

[Fishfinder]

Sorry RodFather can't help you there. The only thing my fishfinder is good for is water depth. I keep eyeing up a new Lowrance out at Cabellas I might get soon. We just go to the same spots every year at certain times and usually hit some stripers. This time it was a guy stopped next to us in traffic in Keyport that told us where to go. I have a private charter with Capt. Lou of the Stripermania next friday morning the 20th. I'm really looking forward to that one. This will be my first time with him.

[lockjaw]

Sorry Rodfather didn't see the question. 54 was the temp.

FF-- If you're going with a Lowrance and you fish Sandy Hook fairly frequently, I STRONGLY encourage you to go with a color model. I had the LMS 350 for several years which was a nice unit but the grey line was a little difficult to fine tune.

There are places in Raritan/SH where you will want to be right on the oyster beds. The color finder makes it idiot proof for locating the proper bottom struction. Just my two cents for what it's worth.

[FreezOrBurn]

Went to Romer Shoal on sunday The Striper action was very very slow. Used bunker chunks.

[bass on the brain]

We fished up there last Monday,boated 4 fish all over 38",realeased 8 others all over 38",lots of large blue fish when the tide went slack.Had a great time!!!