Saturday Stripers!!

[Gerry Zagorski]

Had a few things to take care of on the boat in the AM but finally got everything done and headed out around 11 with Avet George and Arty. We steamed to the back of the Raritan Bay fighting hard NW winds against an incoming tide making it a bit choppy and rolly once you stopped.

Since most of the larger fish were being taken on the troll, George brought two trolling poles with Avet JXs on them. Figured we'd troll while it was wind against and into the slack tide and once we had outgoing, we do some clamming.

Got set up on the troll with some stretches and were on the fish pretty quick. Seems like most of the action was between 20 and 30 feet of water and it did not matter if you trolled with, against or accross the tide. We had several rats with an occational 30 inch fish thrown it.

Once slack tide was over we were going to get set up to clam but George got a call of some nice fish being caught on the troll so we shot to that area instead but no love for us. So, we went into shallower water and clammed with out a touch. Made a move to deeper water and still no love.

We had about another 1/2 hour before we had to head in so we went up on the troll again and caught a few more.

Probably had a dozen Stripers or so split between rats and 30 inch plus fish. A great day in my book and once the wind let up and the tide switched to outgoing the conditions were near perfect.