This time last year everyone was watching a far-off hurricane named Sandy. The rest, as they say, is history. Even though it has been a year, there are many here along the shore that maintain the effects of that storm on the fishing remain.
By no stretch was it a Sandy, but the Jersey shore has gone through almost two full weeks of northeast wind. The worst of it was a week ago Tuesday through Saturday. Things could have been a whole lot worse if those northeast winds were stronger. Fortunately, they maxed out at around 35 mph, although the most I could register on my home equipment was 26.8 mph.
Ocean conditions looked like something out of the Bering Sea and many times we had whitecaps on the bay waters as well. High tides washed over the meadows and that meant dirty water that has to get flushed out. Again, New Jersey was fortunate because we were between the full and new moon so those tides, although they did flood some streets in the island communities, were not destructive. About the most damage took place on the beaches where there was considerable erosion in some areas.
I suppose it was the surfcasters who were negatively affected the most. That is a shame, too, because there are a number of tournaments taking place up and down the coast. There were a few hearty souls who headed to the beaches and even some jetties, but from everything I have heard anything they did happen to catch was hardly worth the beating. There were a few kingfish and croakers and even a couple of short stripers but if someone caught a big fish they kept it a secret.
As far as I could tell there were zero anglers fishing in the back bays. There may have been a few on the Route 54 causeway fishing pier but I never did see anyone fishing from the Rush Chattin Bridge between Strathmere and Ocean City and the only boat I saw during the heart of the blow was a friend of mine running his charter boat down to Cape May for the fall season..
The Ocean City Fishing Club?s big 100th anniversary surf fishing tournament finished Saturday and you will have to wait until next week?s column to get the results. If anyone can catch fish in the surf these six-person teams from up and down the east coast are the ones to do it. When they are chasing a $20,000 prize pool the heavy hitters turn out.
This is the time of year when you should be able to get a good perch bite in our tidal rivers, such as the Mullica, Great Egg, Tuckahoe and Maurice. Perch make an excellent introduction to fishing for the younger set because even small children can catch them. Besides, they taste good, too.
ACROSS THE BAY
If you think Delaware and Maryland salt water fishing was not affected by that never-want-to-leave nor?easter, think again. They got hammered just as we did here in New Jersey. The folks are Bill?s Sport Shop in Rehoboth tell me a couple of anglers did brave the blow and found a few red drum, stripers and blues in the Indian River Inlet. They also reminisced that as soon as Sandy went by last year the red drum fishing exploded in the surf. Incidentally, apparently those drum in IRI were hitting on white bucktails.
A tip of the hat to 1,900 volunteers who spent one day last month participating in the Delaware Natural Resources 27th Annual Coastal Clean-up. They picked up almost four tons of trash along the 80 miles of Delaware water they patrolled from Wilmington down to Fenwick Island. About half of what was picked up was recyclable.
