jode hillman
Well-known member
With yesterday being the first day of Fall and a long month of work now completed. It was deemed a trip to the maze of south Jersey bayshore creeks was in order. I recruited a buddy to be deckhand and we set off from a friends Boat launch as the dawn was just breaking. The Roy boat was loaded with 20 crab traps, dip nets and fishing gear. We were hopping to bring some dinner home come hell or high water (Which we had)
Our first area was to head WAY upriver, to a place I have never been before. Reports of big fall crab in the area had me ready to explore. this spot was beautiful, wood ducks were buzzing all morning but the crab reports were not as good as expected. Three runs of the gear put 15 in the basket, but not any real size to them.
We packed up the gear and headed to the open marsh. I set a string of 20 traps far away from the normal high traffic areas. Big crab started to come aboard quickly and after a few runs our basket was nearing halfway full.
Noticing very clear water coming from upstream I navigated to a few creeks coming out of the woods. My buddy Billy manned the bow with his scap net, and I we slowly idled upstream he netted big rusty crabs from the clear water. After being gone from our gear from about and hour, the tide was dropping and I knew we needed to get back. As often happens in this area I ran across some skinny water trying to get from A to B. Nothing new for me......time to push!
As we cleared the mudflat I saw the unmistakable sight of fish boiling in the distance. At the edge of the flat in slightly deeper water was a ravenous school of stripers and White perch. We anchored up and began to nail the two at a time on pieces of shedder. We caught big humpback perch to 15" and stripers to 24" All the perch went into the holding tanks.
The ride back to pick up our gear was uneventful. Small flocks of green wings lifted off in from of the boat. A good sign of things to come. We made a few more detours to explore before loading back up in the early afternoon.My buddy and I split the catch and we both enjoyed Fresh crabs for dinner last night and perch Fillets for breakfast.
Our first area was to head WAY upriver, to a place I have never been before. Reports of big fall crab in the area had me ready to explore. this spot was beautiful, wood ducks were buzzing all morning but the crab reports were not as good as expected. Three runs of the gear put 15 in the basket, but not any real size to them.
We packed up the gear and headed to the open marsh. I set a string of 20 traps far away from the normal high traffic areas. Big crab started to come aboard quickly and after a few runs our basket was nearing halfway full.
Noticing very clear water coming from upstream I navigated to a few creeks coming out of the woods. My buddy Billy manned the bow with his scap net, and I we slowly idled upstream he netted big rusty crabs from the clear water. After being gone from our gear from about and hour, the tide was dropping and I knew we needed to get back. As often happens in this area I ran across some skinny water trying to get from A to B. Nothing new for me......time to push!
As we cleared the mudflat I saw the unmistakable sight of fish boiling in the distance. At the edge of the flat in slightly deeper water was a ravenous school of stripers and White perch. We anchored up and began to nail the two at a time on pieces of shedder. We caught big humpback perch to 15" and stripers to 24" All the perch went into the holding tanks.
The ride back to pick up our gear was uneventful. Small flocks of green wings lifted off in from of the boat. A good sign of things to come. We made a few more detours to explore before loading back up in the early afternoon.My buddy and I split the catch and we both enjoyed Fresh crabs for dinner last night and perch Fillets for breakfast.
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