Who knew sand fleas, these little grey, brown, and pink crustaceans your mom discovered stuffed in your pockets after a day on the seaside, made such good striper bait?
Lots of people, that’s who! Their effectiveness is well-known amongst seasoned striper anglers; nevertheless, with extra conventional baits like clams, bunker chunks, plugs, and shads getting all the eye, these little crabs are largely ignored.
When spring provides solution to summer time on the Jersey Shore, catching a striper within the surf turns into a bit more difficult. The water warms, the clam and worm bites cool off, and it’s time to turn into a bit of extra inventive.
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I’d heard of individuals catching bass on bugs, often known as sand crabs, sand fleas, or mole crabs, however had no clue how one can fish with them. Then, whereas wandering alongside the seaside in Monmouth County a few summers in the past, I stumbled on an angler who enlightened me.
His singular look, with a rod in a single hand and one other sticking up marked him as devoted. The rod he was fishing had a number of sand crabs caught on the hook, so he was undoubtedly the person to ask. And, he was more than pleased to share what he knew, particularly that through the canine days of summer time, sand crabs catch extra stripers from the seaside than anything. It’s straightforward, cheap, and a blast on mild deal with.
“Through the summer time, the bugs appear to work when nothing else does,” mentioned the angler, Mike Compoly of Neptune, New Jersey. Often called Two-Pole Mike to the many individuals he meets alongside the sand each morning, he has been fishing Monmouth County seashores for many years. A loyal striper angler, Compoly fishes for little else.
One August about 9 years in the past, when bass had turn into scarce within the surf, he bought tipped off to sand crabs by one other angler named Frank Conover. Frank had picked up the approach from one other fisherman who was catching late-summer bass when everybody else was arising empty.
Conover informed Mike to fish the crabs as if he was fishing for trout in a stream by searching for cuts, rips, and eddies, then letting the bait float to the fish. Mike went residence and bought a Fish-N-Mate 167 sand flea rake for the crabs and, shortly thereafter, he began catching bass.
“Stripers aren’t lazy,” he informed me, “however are opportunistic feeders. They’ll look forward to the meals to come back to them, so the key is to seek out shifting water, both in or out. The perfect state of affairs is a rip that begins proper within the trough and curls out. The fish are normally sitting proper on the finish of the curl.”
Mike’s rig consists of 30-pound-test Seaguar Inshore fluorocarbon chief connected to the primary line (which is 20-pound braid) with a barrel swivel. To the chief, he ties a 5/0 Mustad inline circle hook with a double clinch knot. The rod is 7½-feet lengthy and he makes use of a KastKing 3000 Bait Feeder reel. “It’s an excellent reel for the value, it doesn’t rust, and you may’t kill it,” he mentioned.
Relying on situations, he could connect a single break up shot about two ft above the hook. In calmer water, he forgoes the load altogether. On the hook he places three sand crabs with the purpose going simply contained in the shell. “Why three?” I requested, “and never two or 4?”
“As a result of that’s what I began with,” he mentioned, and it labored. As for the scale of the crabs, Compoly’s “rule of thumb” is that they need to be concerning the measurement of your thumb.
Important Gear
Sand Flea Rake
Relatively than dig and sift via sand in your fingers and knees, spend money on a device just like the Offshore Angler Sand Flea Rake or the Fish-N-Mate 167 Giant Sand Flea Rake that means that you can scoop, sift and dump sand looking for sand fleas with out breaking your again (or the financial institution).
Circle Hooks
Per ASMFC laws, all anglers fishing for striped bass with bait— reside or reduce—should use non-offset (inline) circle hooks. The in-line circle hooks lower the chance of intestine hooking a bass and assist scale back launch mortality amongst under- and over-slot stripers.
Low-Visibility Chief
Utilizing sand fleas as bait for striped bass requires some finesse, and a robust, nearly-invisible chief is essential to this finesse method. Whereas abrasion resistance will not be of utmost significance within the sandy New Jersey surf, a robust chief like Seaguar Inshore Fluorocarbon with a thinner diameter checks each bins, giving anglers sufficient stopping energy to out-muscle any slot or over-slot stripers.
Baitfeeder-Type Reel
A baitfeeder-style spinning reel just like the Shimano Baitrunner or Daiwa Free Swimmer includes a secondary drag system that may enable anglers to fish reside or reduce baits with none rapid drag pressure. Stripers nosing round for sand bugs can choose up a baited hook and swim off with it till the first drag is engaged by the angler with the flip of a swap or a crank of the reel deal with.
The bass grasp proper within the wash and many of the motion takes place inside yards of the seaside. And what glorious motion it’s.
Whereas the fish aren’t large, they appear to hit the bugs on the run and simply carry on going. Many of the bass are 24- to 26-inchers, however there are keepers available. Compoly believes they’re all resident fish.
Compoly began freshwater fishing together with his father at an early age. The spotlight of every 12 months was when the Herter’s Catalog arrived and so they ordered all they wanted for the 12 months. Operating lots of of pages, the mail-order enterprise based mostly in Minnesota provided every part a hunter or angler may probably need.
When the household moved from Marlboro to Wall, Compoly discovered his new residence held each younger angler’s dream, a pond on the property. A former gravel and sand pit, it provided a wide range of freshwater species. Compoly and his father would get their restrict of trout at native streams and add them to the pond.
“The pond was deep and funky sufficient that the trout would carry over till the subsequent 12 months.”
It was when he arrived in Wall, Compoly turned his consideration to salt water, catching blues and bass. It was his father’s rule that seaside fishing wouldn’t start till Father’s Day. He and his dad even transported a couple of reside stripers again to the pond, the place they took to the recent water fairly simply.
It was in that pond that Compoly caught a 6½-pound largemouth on 4-pound take a look at that gained a Subject & Stream contest. Together with the gold medal he acquired from the journal, Compoly ordered a taxidermy equipment from Herter’s. He nonetheless has the medal and the mount; fortunately, the horrible stink from the equipment has lengthy since dissipated.
My first summer time fishing with bugs was a revelation. Like quite a lot of anglers, I gave up on seaside bass as soon as spring was accomplished, content material to attend till fall introduced them again. However after operating into Compoly, why not attempt it?
To begin with, it prices nothing — the bait is correct at your ft. For the final couple of years, the seashores of Monmouth County have been alive with sand crabs. Standing in shallow water, they arrive out of the sand like a grey cloud within the receding waves.
That is most likely why they’ve turn into a preferred forage meals for striped bass. Since seaside replenishment has coated up nearly every part else, calico crabs have all however disappeared and Compoly mentioned that filling a five-gallon bucket with clams after a nor’easter was as soon as a given. Not anymore.
“Replenishment is a waste of cash and it actually destroyed many of the undersea life,” he mentioned, “It coated every part up – every part that was dwelling within the rocks.”
Second, it’s straightforward. Whereas the stripers will not be lazy, I’m. Nonetheless, since all that’s required is a rod, a reel, a break up shot and a hook, I gave the bugs a go.
Success got here fairly shortly, and nobody was extra shocked than me.
Floating the crabs within the trough in Ocean Grove, with a gentle south-to-north present, there have been loads of takers. Tide or time of day didn’t appear to matter so long as the water was shifting. Bass grabbed the crabs a couple of ft off the seaside, typically in simply inches of water, then took off like getaway automobile drivers.
However, I additionally missed quite a lot of fish. A second’s lapse meant a swing and a miss on many a strike. Nonetheless, it was essentially the most enjoyable I had fishing in a very long time. And isn’t that what it’s all about?
What Compoly actually enjoys, he mentioned, is watching others, particularly children and youngsters catching bass on the bugs. He readily shares what he is aware of, provides away his handmade lures, and devotes time to fishing with younger individuals.
“I’ve had different individuals train me stuff on the market, particularly after I was youthful,” he mentioned.
Consistent with Compoly’s perception that what’s freely acquired ought to be freely given, I believed I’d do my half to unfold the phrase about bugs for bass. So, this previous spring, it appeared like a good suggestion to spend a while with the grasp. Compoly agreed to let me tag alongside and uncover the tips of catching summer time stripers on sand bugs.
Whereas the bugs may very well be discovered within the sand in early Could, the bass have been nonetheless hitting smooth plastics and small plugs. Compoly mentioned they wouldn’t begin biting on bugs till the primary or second week of June.
Like clockwork, that’s when it began. Compoly mentioned he used to attend till July to begin fishing crabs, however realized with expertise that the chew begins earlier.
One the primary issues I realized is that Mike is a tinkerer. Round his waist, he had common a belt that held his second rod, a container for his sand crabs, a deal with pouch, a hook remover, and his particular wire scoop for gathering bugs. (He’d made the news himself.) One rod is for bug fishing, and the opposite for casting plugs and plastics.
With every part on his belt, the person is cell. Compoly estimates he covers nicely over a mile per outing, and he fishes day by day he can. The bass transfer round, so he does too.
He’s on the seaside earlier than the solar rises and places in a few hours fishing in one among his many favourite spots alongside the Monmouth County coast.
He additionally modified his reel by eliminating the journey mechanism for the bait-runner perform in order that he can manually strip line and be capable of reel so the bugs can float freely within the rips and currents. Bait that isn’t shifting gained’t work.
It was nonetheless wader water for our preliminary outing in Ocean Grove on June 10. The surf was comparatively calm, however Mike recognized spots he suspected have been holding bass.
When he’s stalking stripers, Compoly is a examine in focus. His casts put the crabs into outgoing rips, near the ends of jetties and currents shifting alongside the seaside. Holding the rod in his proper hand and feeding line together with his left, he tracks the bait’s progress within the water, paying out line because it’s pulled by the present or reeling it in to soak up the slack. It’s nearly as if he’s watching what it’s doing underwater, and he does admit that he typically envisions the bugs’ motion within the surf.
When the bait stops shifting, he begins once more.
The fishing was a bit of gradual that morning, however Compoly picked up two bass as much as 26 inches. Not all of the strikes mimic a runaway practice – the stripers typically choose up and drop the crabs earlier than committing.
In contrast to Mike, I’m not a tinkerer and confirmed up that day with a store-bought crab rake that had been given to me. It labored nicely, gathering dozens of crabs with a single pull, nevertheless it was cumbersome and needed to be fetched with each transfer, slowing our progress alongside the sand. (Mike steered a long-handled sieve from a kitchen utensil retailer would work simply as nicely.) Since Mike was at all times searching for the for the subsequent promising spot, I typically discovered myself hustling down the seaside simply to maintain up.
We met once more on June 24 in Ocean Grove, the place Mike picked up a number of extra fish. I lastly bought into the act with a 30-inch bass that grabbed my crabs lower than a yard from the sand. The fish had such a extreme hump in its again that it appeared like a male salmon at breeding time.
The next day we have been in Deal in Mike’s favourite situations: a stiff northeast breeze and churning surf. With the load of the bait and break up shot, it was simply attainable to solid into the white water, however that was all that was wanted. The bass have been proper there within the turbulence, and when the morning was accomplished, Mike had caught eight. He labored the cuts alongside the seaside and the shifting water subsequent to the jetties. He additionally talked about that he’d caught 10 in the identical neighborhood only a week earlier.
Mike caught bass all summer time lengthy. We fished collectively solely often, however he saved me abreast of situations, the place he was fishing, and the outcomes. Every day catches ranged from two to 11 fish, with many days within the 6- to 8-fish vary. By the top of August, he’d tallied a complete of 160 stripers, all on bugs. By mid-September, the depend was 22 for the month and climbing. There have been numerous keepers in there, however Mike releases all of his fish.
Though less than his degree, I didn’t do too badly both, averaging two to 3 fish per outing. All those caught and even those who bought away have been memorable.
Bug fishing is such a enjoyable time that I believed it could be good of me to introduce it personally to members of the family. My brother-in-law, Ed Lenorth, was an early goal. He’d been a fisherman all his life, however hadn’t spent a lot time at it recently. In truth, it was attainable he hadn’t caught a fish since Nixon was president.
We met on a sunny and scorching 4th of July in Ocean Grove. In the course of the day on a crowded seaside, Ed hooked and landed a 26-inch bass not too far-off from vacation swimmers.
Then there was my spouse, Maureen. Now she would see the place I am going after I disappear for hours at a time. On a fantastic July afternoon, she introduced a near-keeper to the seaside in heavy surf and acquired a standing ovation from Ocean Grove beachgoers who witnessed the battle.
Compoly fishes bugs till the mullet run is underway. By then, there are sufficient different meals sources round that the stripers begin to swap up their menu.
He estimates that he catches bass about 80 % of the time. Having noticed him in motion, I’d say it was a lot greater, however who am I to argue with a former New Jersey state debate champion?
Usually, after I met him within the mornings, he’d already be deep in focus, as much as his waist fishing by the point I arrived. Until I spoke, he wouldn’t know I used to be there, misplaced in his reverie. These have been his moments of Zen, he informed me.
After all of the bass he’s caught and all of the hours spent on the sand, I requested him if he ever bought uninterested in it.
“By no means,” he mentioned.
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