Finicky Shad and a Special Tog

 

        It's too fucking warm. Usually when I think November fishing, I'm expecting to be bundled up, freezing my ass off on a salmon stream or an inlet jetty or my beloved Delaware hoping to tickle up a few walleyes. But this year, we had temperatures up into the mid-70's when my more festive friends are starting to play Christmas music, much to my dismay. However, October had semi-normal October weather, so the water temps haven't been affected too much. 

    On Salmon Camp Eve, Victor and I decided to hit a local inlet jetty for the feisty little Jersey tarpon known as the hickory shad. Hickories are an underrated light tackle delight; if they're in the mood, they hit any small lure or fly and will jump like their cousin the Silver King. We also picked up some green crabs, hoping to poke around for some big fall tautogs. 

    We pulled up in the afternoon, right before high tide. There was no sign of bait around, so I began cutting crabs and dropping them down tog holes with rigs, starting all too familiar cycle of crunch, swing, and miss. All of a sudden, my crab gets walloped on the way down. I swing, my rod doubles over, and I feel the sickening scrape of mono leader dragging over rocks. My rod pops back up and my line goes slack. Tog 1, Alan 0. A few minutes later, I lost another big tog on the same rock. I've heard blackfish gurus say that big tog stick to rocks in pairs. After losing both members of a pair, I'm a believer.  

    Soon after, the man next to me lands a hickory. I start casting a small pink albie metal, and get picked up. A flash of silver, a jump, and this shad shakes the hook. An oldhead next to me yells a word of advice, but I can't hear it over the wind and waves. I learned over, cupped my hand around my ear, and yelled back. 

    "I'm sorry?"

    "Sorry?" he yelled back. "What you saying sorry for? You're too young to be sorry. Wait until you're old like me, then you're allowed to be sorry. I was telling you that the shad hit sabiki rigs. Go out there and catch 'em." Two different pieces of advice in one exchange, one fishing, one life. It's incredible how much advice concerning the two intertwine out on the water, even in a place like dirty Jersey where everyone's supposed to be an asshole. 

    I continue casting my metal out of sheer laziness, but let it sink to the bottom and jig it, like how someone would fish a sabiki. I get smacked and land my first hickory shad of the year. Victor puts on a sabiki and starts hammering fish on a fast retrieve. 

    The shad were being picky. They wanted a bait fished much closer to the bottom than what I'm usually using for them. I got many hits, but few hook ups and most of the fish I hooked managed to spit the lure. Frustrated, I put on a tog jig and crab and sent it to the bottom. I feel a set of crunches, and swing as hard as I can. The medium bass rod I'm using bends into a hula hoop and I have to cup my spool to give the fish as little room as possible to run into the cover. It breaks the surface, and it's one of my biggest land based togs, missing a chunk out of the top of it's head, most likely from an osprey  encounter when it was young. I harvested that fish for the dinner table. 

    While I was fooling around with tog, Victor continued to put a smackdown on the hickory shad using both sabikis and a variety of small soft plastics. We were a little short of a limit, and lost just about as many fish as we hooked (many more in my case). The acrobatic displays of aerial feats that these silvery little fish can produce more than made up for it. 

    I've never done much land based tog fishing this late in the year. However, I've heard that you get shots at much bigger fish, and after this trip, I'm a believer in both going later and learning the jig. I believe it's light tackle and tog jigs that finally gave these fish the popularity that they deserve, and it makes me happy to see more and more people out every year having fun trying to learn the difference between a scratch and a thump. As for the shad? Hook one in heavy current on light tackle and it'll speak for itself. 

    Cheers, fishy people. 

                                                                                                                                     

October: Day and Night

    It's that time of year. The trees are displaying their coats of reds, oranges, yellows, and browns all across the hillsides of the Delaware, the temperatures are dropping, and the fish are putting on the feed to get ready for the winter. In my opinion, October and April are the two best months of the year to catch big river smallmouth. You won't have a 20 fish day like you may in the summer, but you very seldom need to weed through dinks to find the football shaped trophy caliber fish. 

    It was on a cool October afternoon where I found myself along a stretch of the Delaware further south than my typical stomping grounds. Casting a paddle-tail swimbait, I soon get thumped on a steady retrieve. A flash of bronze, a few leaps and splashes, and soon, I've landed my biggest smallmouth of the fall. I love big smallmouth; there's very little in freshwater that can match a big bronzeback pound for pound in terms of scrappiness. 

    I soon sent her back on her way and continued wandering down the river. I eventually left and drove to one of my spots further up north, hitting some canal locks along the way. Got lost in the woods for a few hours. Holy shit, I needed that. 

    The next night, I found myself at the exact same spot I got that big smallmouth at. This time, however, I had on my mind the things that go bump in the night. October is also around when the local river rats turn their attention towards ol' marble eyes. On my third cast with a purple shadow rap, I got that signature walleye thump. 

        Fall marks a time of immense change for fish, no matter where you are. Everything feels rushed, from the massive push of bunker along the shore and the bass and blues that follow in a mad dash for the Chesapeake, the salmon and steelhead that run up the tribs to spawn, the walleyes and smallmouth that start gorging themselves in preparation for the winter, and the sense that there's too much to do and not enough time to do it before all the leaves are gone and the north winds chill the landscape. 

Cheers, fishy people. 

Jersey Mirages

 

    Gulls, terns, and gannets sit around, waiting. A stiff east wind is blowing in my face, kicking up white water and severely restricting my casting distance. Past the outer bar, bait breaks the surface. Or is it just the wind? I make a cast with an epoxy, let it sink, and burn it in. Nothing. 

    Jersey exotics are a weird deal. Typically, they show up around late summer/early fall, when the Gulf Stream starts doing some janky shit. Then, we get shots at Bonito and Spanish Mackerel, False Albacore, Mahi-Mahi, needlefish and houndfish, juvenile jack crevalle, tarpon that get instantly shot once they hit Barnegat Inlet. Jersey used to be a redfish state before the eelgrass went away, but sometimes, they still haunt the backwaters along with speckled trout. 

    Earlier that day, I had paid a visit to my favorite saltwater tackle shop, Grumpy's in Seaside. Picking a few S&S bucktails off the rack, I stopped at a part of the shop I rarely visit, grabbing a few epoxies, thin metals, and resin jigs. 

    "Any hardtails around?" I ask the shop worker, as I slide my items across the counter. 

    "Albies will be showing up any day now. There's Bonito and Spanish in the surf." 

    "Thanks." 

    "Good luck," he responds, as I pay and leave. I'll need that. Reports are a fickle thing when it comes to pelagics. Hardtails are constantly on the move. 

    So far, nothing is showing. The wind keeps blowing out of the east, creating massive wind knots in my spool. Epoxy comes off, on goes a bucktail with a bait-strip, hoping for a bass or blue. Nil. I switch to meat-fishing, putting on a fluke rig. I get slammed, landing an 18 inch keeper fluke. 

    The upwelling occurring along the Jersey shore throughout the summer has produced cooler temperatures from shore. It's certainly made the surf-fluking much better; I'm 2 for 2 on keepers from the unreplenished beaches around IBSP this year. When I was cleaning that fluke, it's stomach was full of calico crabs and sandfleas. He's been hanging around the wash for a while. 

    I only wish the Albies and Spanish would do the same. Until then, I'll keep looking. 

Cheers, fishy people.