Spots and Stripes
To be honest, I find fishing for summer flounder, known here in the North East as fluke, to be a relatively dull type of fishing. The fluke attracts a cult following all summer, when thousands of anglers set out from shore, kayak, and boat to jig along hoping for a score of the delicious bottom feeders.
Personally, I would much rather wait for the fall, when the sunshine and tourists leave and the cold wind blows down from the North. That is when I set out to the jetties to catch my favorite bottom fish, the tautog. I'm utterly addicted to trying not to fall off the rocks in a Nor-Easter, dropping down a rig with some green crab, feeling those signature tog scratching bites, setting the hook and feeling the brute power of a big blackfish digging for the rubble below. That is bottom fishing for me.
However, there are certain circumstances when it is important to not take fishing too seriously, such as on the 4th of July, when at any point on the river a group of rafters might float right over where your keitech is skipping above the bottom, waiting for a hungry smallmouth to chomp on it. Therefore, when my family and I decided to take a day trip to the rolling dunes of NJ's Island Beach State Park, one of the last natural un-replenished stretches of coastline in the state, I decided to try to walk away from the crowds and find a stretch of surf to fish. Based on what I was hearing, the bass weren't around in big numbers, and the huge schools of bluefish that usually compromise the bread and butter of Jersey springtime fishing were gone and forsaken for their snapper counterparts, who had the same level of ferocity as their chopper and gator parents, but still had some time to go before they were the same size. Therefore, catching fluke in the wash was the most logical explanation. Stocking up on gulp and bucktails, I began walking my way north away from beach buggies and umbrellas, towards the trucks and Van Staals.
Due to the lack of replenishment, the beaches of IBSP are very different from most of Jersey. The troughs are deeper and white water is much more widespread than say, along the coast of Belamr. This is what makes it such good fish habitat. I began casting a bucktail and gulp behind each breaking wave, slowly bouncing them back. Not 5 minutes later I get a tap, swinging to feel the distinct headshakes of a fluke slowly gliding it's way towards whatever pressure from whatever faraway source. It was small, but an icebreaker.
Shortly after, as I worked the bucktail back, I felt the taps of something much more substantial. Setting the hook, I see a flash of silver and heard the sound of drag coming off the reel. "That's a bluefish," I thought, mistaking my good friend Old Seven Lines for a straggler blue still hanging around. Instead, it broke the wash-line and instead I saw the sight of distinct black bars, pale from a fish that stayed in Jersey instead of chasing the big schools of mackerel and bunker north to New England.
Soon however, a weather front moved in and with it came heavy wind and rain, ending the prefrontal bite. There wasn't a soul in sight on arguably the most busy day at the Jersey Shore. There's always a way to get away from the crowd.
