LBI Report Saturday Oct. 23

Saturday, October 23, 2004: Waves: Powerful 6-8 foot northerly medium period groundswell, tons of current n-s. Water clarity: Fair south end of LBI but poor from mid-Island north; very brown Ship Bottom area. Winds: Have sung around a bit from the NNW but will go back to NE this a.m.

This weather is getting very tired. It?s spitting this a.m., chilly, windblown and enough current to drag a pound of lead sideways. Still, there are a lot of surfcasters out there and even a few daring boat anglers. Yesterday, amid the 22 knot NE-erlies there were some boats folks fishing bayside Holgate and even mixing it up with the inside shoals, which were fierce. A few boats were working near the channel at Morrison?s but tuning in to sea lettuce.

The beach offered bluefish to a few casters yesterday and Brian Dalton managed a 31-14 bass. However, the fishing was seriously slow. Piss-poor due mainly to conditions. (To instant critics of this site, if you?d follow this site enough you?d know I OFTEN offer total junk and skunk reports when the lack of bite warrants same.)

DEJA RELEASE ALL OVER AGAIN: Get this. Brian D. pulled his fish out of the suds, put it in a cooler with some sea water, weighed it in and after it was officially recorded took it over to the Ship Bottom fishing ramp and released it. As with Ric O Brien?s 41-pound catch-register-release bass, it swam off, apparently no worse for wear. Wow. Who?d have thunk it.
I have now emptied my large cooler of Reese?s Peanut Butter Cup wrappers and over-ripe bunker. I figure if I do that, the bass will notice how nice and clean my cooler is and be far more willing to take a ride with me to the tackle shop scales. Hey, I?ll take any edge I can get right about now. I was even thinking of putting a brightly lit ?Bass Taxi? light on top of my Toyota. You know, just drive the beach waiting to get flagged down.

Anyway, someone might wonder if the bass would suffer any brain damage from being in just a cooler out of water for 20 or 30 minutes. Not to belittle our fine angling adversary, the striper, but I?m not sure there?s enough brain in that cranium to worry about any significant loss one way or the other. I?ll bet a week?s wages ? yours ? that once the cobwebs cleared from the brains of those released bass, their first coherent thought was ?What the hell am I doing in the bay,? followed immediately by, ?Oh, well, let?s eat.?

There are bass and blues in the North End surf, per BL Bait and Tackle. It?s a tough hoe to get through the surge, though and the fishing pressure is way down. Mike at Mole?s reported bass near the Sod Banks and the north end of the Dike.

It?s going to be tough finding fresh bunker with this weather. Fresh-caught herring should suffice for the time being. Plus, I have a couple croakers in the bait-box. I?ll bet anything both bass and blues will scarf up a chunk of that.

The www.lbift.com site now has prize winnings for the 2004 LBI Surf Fishing Tourney. Check it out. I anxiously went in to see if I won one of those ?surprise? prizes. They?re hard to come by when you haven?t weighed anything in yet. It?s like standing around reminiscing with people you don?t know. I did notice that the day I took those mid-20-pounders, there wasn?t a single bass weigh-in. Hmmm. Looks like I dropped the bass on that one.

[ 10-23-2004, 10:19 AM: Message edited by: NIGHTSTRIKES ]