Article by Dale Timmons
One of the attractive aspects to fishing is the mystery of it all. I mean, just when you think you have it (or some of it, at least) figured out, it doesn’t work the way it’s supposed to. Last week I was up at Capt. Mac’s High Performance Tackle talking to owner Capt. Bruce McGuigan when another gentleman came in with a delivery. The fellow was from up in northern New Jersey. He proceeded to tell Bruce that they had been tearing up the bluefish up there. Fish of all sizes from 2 to 10 lbs. Bruce and I looked at each other and wondered out loud how those fish got by the Maryland/Delaware coasts, since as far as either of us knew blues have been scarcer than none around here, at least as I write this. To add to the mystery, I know that there has been a good bluefish bite on the beaches of Ocracoke and Hatteras in North Carolina, which is a long way from Raritan Bay. About the only explanation I can come up with is that maybe those fish came in from way offshore, perhaps following a warm eddy close to the beach. Like I have written before, some scientists feel that all of the big bluefish we had inshore for so many years was really an anomaly. They believe the choppers are supposed to be more of a pelagic, offshore open sea dweller, which is how they have been acting for the past 10 years or so, with only more sporadic appearances from the inshore shoals in to the beaches. As the old saying goes, fish have tails, and they probably don’t read too many “how-to” books, so the mysteries will probably continue…
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Many of you who know me know that I am kind of a “gear junkie.” For me, finding or making new things that work is one of the pleasures of fishing. In that vein, I like to pass on from time to time what new goodies I have found that have either worked for me or look like they will as soon as I get a chance to try them. First, a couple of new reels from Shimano caught my eye. The Curado 300E is a low profile casting reel much like the bass boys use, but it is designed for the salt with more line capacity, a one piece aluminum body and spool, and stainless steel ball bearings. The 300E is actually a re-design of the Curado, and it also features a 6.2:1 gear ratio and a variable brake system for casting. The reel holds 240 yards of 12-pound mono, and should be great for speckled trout, puppy drum, stripers and gray trout fishing in the shallows and inlets. Shimano also introduced the Saragosa line of spinning reels this year. For those of you familiar with Shimano, the Saragosa kind of falls in between the top-of-the-line Stella and the simpler but tough Spheros, at least in the reels made for salt water (ever notice how the Shimano marketing folks have a thing for the letter “S”?). It is a lot less expensive than a Stella, but still features five shielded A-RB stainless steel ball bearings and a waterproof drag as well as many of Shimano’s other bells and whistles. I picked up a small 4000 size, which holds 200 yards of 10 lb. test mono, but I filled it with 15 lb. braid and plan to use it for casting light lures to whatever comes along. One of those lures might be one of the new soft plastic “minnow” styles that seem to be all the rage. I haven’t fished one of these paddle tail style plastics yet, but they really look fishy. Most of them come with a weighted hook and they can be rigged weedless, which might come in handy when fishing around rocks or stumps for species such as trout, reds or stripers. They can also be fished on a jig head or rigged Texas style with an offset worm hook. There are a lot of different brands on the market, but two that especially caught my eye are the “SwimmerZ” from Zman and the Riptide Inshore Minnow. Another lure that grabbed me this past winter is the new Clackin’ Rap from Rapala. This lure is a Rat-L-Trap® style sinking plug with a unique external metal disk to transmit the sound made by a single steel ball. The lure features VMC SureSet® hooks, which are not really made for the salt, but they should hold up well if you rinse the lure after using it. I usually end up changing the split rings and hooks on many of these types of lures after I have used them once or twice anyway. I like a heavy duty split ring and at least a 2X hook. I especially like the colors available on the new Clackin’ Rap. Rapala has come a long way in the past several years when it comes to colors and lure finish. I also like the fact that it weighs seven-eighths of an ounce and casts like a bullet. It should work especially well for fishing around structures where the water is fairly deep and there is a lot of current, such as around bridge pilings…
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Spent a day on the beach at Assateague last week. I was especially targeting black drum, but also put out a bunker head for stripers. Something took one of the bunker heads and somehow managed to get it off an 8/0 circle hook, which is strange. I watched it eat and kept waiting for the rod to go down, but it never happened and the head was just gone. The score so far, therefore, is fish—1, Dale—0, but in spite of the clouds and a few rain showers, it was a nice day with just a light southeasterly breeze. The curlews were migrating, and they are one of my favorites. A day or so after I went down, the Park Service apparently put up closure signs just south of the Bull Pen to protect nesting birds or cordon off areas where the birds might nest. Rather than close off the entire access corridor, however, it is my understanding that they just moved the western boundary of the ORV zone closer to the ocean, so that the birds have more room but the fishermen can still get by. Sounds like a good compromise on the part of the NPS to me, and I applaud them for taking the people as well as the birds into consideration. After all, in this day and age, when you pay $120.00 or more for a beach permit it’s tough when over half of the ORV zone is closed for much of the summer season…especially when it turns out in the fall that none of the chicks even survived because of the foxes, coons, crows, black backed gulls, grackles and so on. The fishermen are the least of their worries…
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Contact Dale Timmons at [email protected] or call 410-629-1191.
