The Fall Run

    By the time the first November gales reach the Jersey shore, a quiet gray rust has settled down all across the coastline. The bones of summertime boardwalks and the weather faded old signs of restaurants and fishing shacks line the streets like terracotta warriors. It's eerily quiet compared to the neon bustling mass that it stays all summertime long. And yet, on the outer sand beaches, the Jersey shore teems with life as it hosts the centerpiece for one of the largest annual migrations along the Atlantic coast, a melee of birds and bait and bass and blues. It's what fisherman up and down the right coast look forward to as the Fall Run. 

    I arrived in Seaside Heights before first light, and listened to the old familiar cries of gulls and the sound of rushing waves as I strapped on my waders in the parking lot. I missed the ocean very much, living in Central Pennsylvania these past few months. Cresting the narrow strip of sand dune, I rose to the sun, a blood-red glowing strip stretching across the horizon. The wind was howling in my face. Winds of the West, fish bite the best. 

    My arrival was timed with the outgoing tide, which had reached its peak around 4:00 AM. I threw around a pencil popper for a little bit, with nothing to show. Still, it felt fishy enough, magic hour sunrise, west wind in my face, that I refused to move. I tied on a darter and threw it into the wind as best as I could, gave a few fast cranks to dig it in behind the first white-cap, then slowly began to crawl it through the trough. On my second cast, my first bass of the fall hit. I felt the familiar old head-shakes and tail thumps of a striper, dragged the slot sized bass up onto the sand. I gave the fish a measurement, and seeing that it was 29 inches, decided to harvest it. My mama told me she wanted me to bring a fish home for dinner, and I couldn't refuse a direct order from mama. 

    I pulled out a knife, spiked the bass in the head, and bled it out, watching the red blood of the bass flow down the sand and get washed off into the ocean like the red blood of the horizon as the sun slowly rose. Thanked it for its sacrifice. 

    Throwing that fish on ice, I stopped by Grumpy's Bait and Tackle, one of the only establishments in the area that sees an influx of activity on the Jersey shore come summer's end. Bought a diamond jig, chatted with Ray about the recent bite, and went back out. 

    By now, the wind had picked up greatly and the bait had begun to set up right outside the beach. A pod of seagulls and gannets were working a pod of bunker up close. Very close. Inside the inner trough, close. These bunker were big too, full adults. And slashing through the bunker, corralling them like sheep dogs, were stripers of every size. 

    Bass behave differently based on the size of the available forage. Stripers eating anchovies and sandeels act stoned, lazily hunkering down on the couch. They definitely want to eat, but don't want to work too hard for it. Stripers on mullet and adult bunker on the other hand are full-drunk, aggressive, come out swinging. And this pod of fish seemed pretty shit-faced to me. 

    I put on the biggest plug I had, a giant wooden metal-lipped swimmer, and started working the edge of the school. Pretty quickly, I got a massive thump. This fish gave a few tail beats and took off towards the outer bar, burning a few yards of drag with it. My 5 year old Penn reel was also binding up from years of salt and sand exposure, so it took a bit of effort to turn the fish. Eventually, she broke the surface, shook her head, and dove back down. With each incoming wave though, I got this fish closer and closer, until I was able to drag her onto the sand in a surge of white water. I knew instantly this was my biggest bass ever. 

    I unhooked that 34 incher stuffed to the gills with adult bunker, knelt in the breaking surf, felt her clamp down on my thumb and draw blood. I released that fish and she swam off with a huge tail thump. 

    By now the big bait pod had push almost past, being corralled by stripers circling and slashing in an ancient south-ward dance performed every single fall for thousands of years. I managed to pick off two more slot-sized fish on a storm shad, fish that had lingered behind the school to pick off any wounded bunker that failed to keep up. 

    I fished that spot for a little longer, while some of my nearby anglers caught a few schoolies on metal jigs. After the tide switch, the wind died down and the beach lay out flat. I saw birds and bait working, but without gusts to push them tight to shore, they were way out of surf-casting range. I casted for a little bit and watched and casted and watched some more until I was no longer fishing but just lapsing into a methodical cycle of casting and watching the endless blue ocean with no expectations. All the while, listening. In the south, a pod of stripers and bunker broke the surface, way out of range. Heading south to the Chesapeake for the winter. I wish those boundless striped wanderers safe travels.