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Ryan Jones At Sandy Hook Bay

1 week ago

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Monmouth County, New Jersey

I've had the worst luck fishing recently, but luckily that changed today. After 29 days of not catching fish, I finally succeeded today. I went back for Thanksgiving break Saturday, where I not only got skunked on the river, but tripped over and broke my 5 weight fly rod. Yesterday, I decided to head down to Sandy Hook for the striper run, and hoped to catch my first striper from the surf. I was out at the tip of the hook for 5:45, more than an hour before sunrise. There were a few guys that were fishing the rip, and they were catching some stripers. About 15 minutes went by before I got my first hit, but when I set the hook, my 50lb test immediately snapped. My line was wrapped around my reel, and I lost the fish. Somehow, one of the other guys got tangled in my line and I was able to handline my swimshad back. At this point, the sun was starting to rise, and the bite immediately turned off. I the decided to walk the beach in hope of coming across a blitz. There were birds to the south, and I thought the bait might eventually push towards shore. The bait never came within casting range. I chased the birds 4 miles south along the beach and did not have a chance at any fish. However, people on the boats were having a blast. All of them limited out and caught multiple fish. After an hour walk back to my car, I decided that the next day I would head out on a party boat. So today, I went out on the Prowler V. The first 6 hours of the 3/4 day trip was terrible. Out of the whole boatz only 6 fish were caught. I had one follow me in to the boat, but that was it. There were birds around and the bait was there, but the fish were just not hungry. Then the last hour was awesome. The fish started to blow up on bait and guys were hooking up. I landed 3 fish, my biggest being 31.5". Thank goodness, because I was seriously starting to doubt my skills as a fisherman after this last month. Hopefully I can get out another time this week, maybe try to catch that musky.