Fishing Report: 11/21/2010
As I guessed in last week's report, once the water cleaned up a bit the inlet area came roaring back to life with live spot being the bait of choice, and steady jigging action along the beachfront finally turning on. The weather really dictated how we could fish this week, with ocean conditions determining when we could run up the beach and inlet conditions fluctuating between sporty and unfishable most of the week. But it's November, so that's expected and the price we pay for great fall fishing.
Monday I had Scott Fritz and Pete Haupt out on their annual pre-Thanksgiving outing, and the guys proceeded to start the week off by landing eighteen stripers up to 20 pounds. All but five of these fish were above the 28" minimum size, so these were nice fish stuffed to the gills with sand eels. Diamond jigs and live spot both produced, with the hottest action coming in the inlet as the tide changed and fourteen bass being landed in just over an hour. Tuesday turned out to be a rough trip for the Jack Hough party when the howling southeast winds and swell in front of Wednesday's gale made both the ocean and the inlet unfishable, and neither clams nor live spot could generate action in the back bay.
Friday brought out Hal Gilham with his son Patrick, father-in-law "Crazy" Charlie, and buddy Joe for an epic day of bass fishing. The fishing in the inlet was so good around the tide change that by 8:15 the guys had landed twenty bass to 19 pounds, all on live spot. With their limit already in the box, we then headed north for some fun jig fishing off Seaside and the guys banged (and released) another twenty bass plus 20-25 jumbo bluefish before we headed in with a full fish box and aching arms late morning. Yesterday brought back George Selph and Bob Keller for their season finale and while the intense weekend boat traffic slowed the bite down a bit, the guys still managed to land seven bass on spot and jigged up eight to ten big blues north of the inlet.
So overall, a pretty good week of fishing and what we look forward to each fall. As I mentioned a couple weeks back, I'm planning to extend my season for a week past my normal Thanksgiving wrap-up for anyone looking to get out one last time.