Breachways & Jetties
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Date: May 07, 2006 at 20:49:13
From: miker, [bg-max-ppp1108.monmouth.com]
Subject: Spring Time 2006 Spring Lake NJ Jetty Fishing Part one
Up until around 1996 or 97 this time of year you could go down to the Wreck Pond flume commonly known as the Pipe and watch a flurry of activity. The pipe connected wreck pond with the ocean and herring used to come in and out of the pipe starting mid to late March and head up to the fresh water area to or past Old Mill pond and spawn there.. The arrivals peaked around this time of May and the spawners leaving the piped peaked after Memorial day. Straglers could be netted now and then to mid June.Some guys used to dart herring in the back of Wreck Pond off of the railroad bridge.
This was such a big event that our local striper clubs name is Spring Lake Liveliners.Guys would go down to the pipe with castnets and attempt to net some herring to fish with. Those with high ambitions had traps stashed away in the back of rivers where theyd store their herring for future use. Most liveliners had livewells in the back of their trucks and after netting some would store their herring in them either for fishing or use.. As a begginer youd just go down with a castnet,hope to get a few,and if youd did,youd store them in a bucket and fish right there off the pipe or walk up to Brown Ave Jetty in Spring Lake or Beacon in SeaGirt both less than 100 yards from the pipe.
From mid May until the mid of June the many Spring Lake jetty front would each hold a liveliner or two every morning and on weeks ends most every jetty was normaly taken by a liveliner...The jetties in Spring Lake, starting from north to south are, fishermens, Howell, Ludlow, St Claire, The Breakers[newark], Washington, Passaic, Sussex, Atlantic, the pump house,[Pennsylvania] and Brown.The Sea Girt jetties south of Brown are Beacon, New York Philadelphia, Trenton, Neptune,and Suicide,there is an area south odf suicide called the butts which holds some good jetties but because of the walk few livelined them..These were all big jetties with plenty of deep water that all held fish now and then..There was deep water around them regardless of the state of the tide and with a pair of corkers and some spalsh pants and a rain jacket you could fish them in some real snotty weather.
Part two will follow.
Responses:
[4] [9] [43] [44] [12] [5] [6] [3]
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Date: May 09, 2006 at 22:01:42
From: miker, [bg-max-ppp688.monmouth.com]
Subject: Re: Spring Time 2006 Spring Lake NJ Jetty Fishing Part two
The base of those jetties went right up the beach just about to the board walk and because of the literal flow from south to north the sand build up was always much greater on the south side than north side.At high tide there was deep water right at their base..And the base of the north side of some of was often right near the board walk.
Every Spring Lake jetty but Passaic had a cut that you had to negotiate and on some such as Brown and the Pump house most couldnt get thru at hide tide.
Most of the regulars had their favorites and it wasnt unusual to see Bobby Matthews and Mike Commune on Fishermens, Mickey Albert on Howell or Ludlow.. The Partuches often joined him there..Mickey also fished Ludlow and youd see Mike Holwitz out there now and then. Bob Pitino fished Washington and Passaic regularly, George Thompkins was often on Sussex..Steve the roofer was always on Ludlow and in the spring we laughed that his customers were not getting their roofs fixed.. Steve in one sentence would mutter more f's than a drill sargeant. Of course there was a scatering of guys on the other jetties and youd occasionally see Asbury Park Striper club members in town including Bill Mc Fadden, and Andre the Hair dresser.All these guys were dedicated striper fishermen..They all livelined in the spring as sure as pollen would come.
I was out throwing a Danny plug on the front of Ludlow one morning in the spring in the early 90s when a bigger guy came right up started talking and threw a bunker right out where I was casting.. He said hello and started bsing with me before I could even figure out that I had been hustled out of my spot..That was the first time I had met Mike Holwitz, a shore legend who has 9 50 lb bass documented all caught off of local jetties.He had just caught his 9 th and there was an article in the local paper about him so I recognized him and started talking to him about fishing.. Mike knew the Spring Lake jetties about as well as any one and told me that hed go out and study them from his boat. He told me that every jetty had at least one if not two deep holes right of the front and that although there could be fish off the sides that the fronts were the place to go for more consistent shots at bigger fish.He had caught at least 2 of his 50s off the front of Ludlow and claimed that the jetty had an extra hole in the front and that it was one of his favorite jetties..
I work in town and on most mornings back then Id wake early fish until 7 or so come home and change eat and go to work. Of course on my way into work Id ride the beach and see if anyone one was doing anything.. One thing that always amazed me was that Mickey Albert fished later than anyone.He never gave up and never seemed to have to leave for work or anything else for tha matter.. Mickey who has 5 or 6 50s is a one man fishing team and catches an unbelievable amount of big bass.. He handles his herring and bunker with care and if there is a knack to fishing with live bait he definitley had it.. I always liked to watch him fish. He was like an eagle the way he watched his bait swim.
Now if you got to fish with some of these guys it was like a lifetime education if youd keep your mouth shut and listened...They would walk along the jetty and stop and say you know in 1982 I got a 42 right from this rock,next year after that got another 40 lber right here.Let your herring swim more, dont keep throwing it out, it'll die on you.. Here hook it this way gently.. Let your herring acclimate itself to the colder ocean water, dont be in such a rush to fish it.Pull on it the other way to get it to swim where you want.Now lets go to the front watch that last jump youll break your back if you dont make it..If a fish hits let it take it and swim before setting the hook.Count to 10 before you do yea count to 10 if you can otherwise you pull the hook. Once you are ready to set the hook reel the line tight before you set the rod.
The basis of that kind of fishing was to have a rod fairly stout 8 foot or so in length with a decent conventional reel on it.. Some used Penns or Diawas but Ambassidors seemed to be the favorite of the top guys.I leanred that you had to comprimise between lines.. Ande 20 was ok but 25 too heavy and subject to kinking when the water was cold. I got to using Berkerly limp 20 lb when it was colder and would sometimes change to Ande 20 when the water warmed.. Ande 25 cost me a bad morning with fish around as the damned stuff kinked and tangled.. Youd take your herring out of your livewell put it into a bucket od water get you rod and go down and fish..I learned to hook the bait behind the dorsal fin in such away so the hook wouldnt turn if a fish hit from both Bobby Matthews and Mike Holwitz but to tell the truth I cant remember the secret.One you got to a spot on the jetty where you wanted to start fishing youd just throw your herring out and hoped that it would swim.. I would always know right away if it was going to be a bad morning on which way my herring would swim the first time out.. If it swam back at me I knew the water was cold and that getting the damned thing to swim was going to be a pain. If it did swim out that was a better sign but if it ran and was then chopped you knew it was going to be a long morning because of bluefish.Back to the truck get another herring.. One morning I went thru 3 herring in three attempts in less than 10 minutes walked off and didnt fish another herring for a year.But the guys good at it were masters at it.. Bobby would keep his baits alive thru early July and I swear he could sweettalk those things into the jaws of a big bass.
This is getting longer than I thought, Part three to follow.
Responses:
[9] [43] [44] [12] [5] [6]
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Date: May 11, 2006 at 22:30:09
From: miker, [bg-max-ppp133.monmouth.com]
Subject: Re: Spring Time 2006 Spring Lake NJ Jetty Fishing Part 3
The spring striper tournaments always started the weekend before Memorial day and run for a month or so..Nobody liked to say as much but it seemed back then that the tournaments were really to see how the Spring Lake herring guys could stack up against the Asbury herring guys herring..The Spring Lake Pipe vs the Asbury Park flume.On top of that the Berklely guys always did well fishing herring along barnegat inlet..Of course guys clamming would weigh in fish now and then but liveliners felt a certain superiority over them and their accomplishments no matter how great were always scoffed at.
Tournements started at 12 am Friday morning and lasted until 12 pm Sunday..Joe Pallato the President of the Asbury club used to like to win so much that he would hand out herring to his club mmebers who had none on tournement weekends.. It seemed to me that they had the advantage as the 8th ave jetty in ASbury was their home turf and was a great jetty.. And it got even better in a spring North east storm.We didnt have an answer for it here in Spring Lake.. The pipe was just that and at the time few could liveline it at the same time, and it was a dangerous place to be in a north east storm..If I remember right most of these tourneys were Ocean only.. This meant jetty fishing. I fished a number of them back them and they all had a similar pace.. Up early.. Down to the trap to get some herring. On the way you would fill the livewell.. Net some bait.. check the trap.. get some coffee and head down the beach to find an open jetty.. The etiquette then in tourneys was you wouldnt walk out on another guy even if he was in your own club unless you had prearranged it.You would walk out on dillydocks though hoping that they would leave. I remember one time fishing Fishermens with experienced friends and we walked out on a couple of guys who were fishing clams off the jetty.. A pretty stupid thing to do as everyone in the know knew that you either livelined or plugged a jetty and clamfishemen belonged on the beach.Bobby was with me along with a fellow named Joe.. We sort of crowded out the clam fishermen as we folowed our herring out the jetty.. Joe kept muttering God Damned dilly docks.. Next thing we knew the dilly docks started catching some good sized bass and we couldnt even get a chase.. Joes muttering got stronger with everyfish they caught, Bobby kept laughing harder, and we finally packed it in and found another jetty so Joe could keep his sanity.Those tourneys separated the guys who could really fish and I bet if you looked at the results back then year by year you find the same guys shining..
The fact is though great fishermen or not all the jetties along the Jersey coast were filled back then in the spring with guys fishing tournaments.You had to be at a jetty before sunrise with a hope of getting on it even tough you needed some sunlight to liveline.
I liked plugging better than livelining which seemd like a job to me. I mean first you had to gather the bait.. The way we used to do that was to meet at the pipe early mornings in April.. We all had live wells and traps.. Bobby was the boss, and he and Mike Commune would throw the nets.. George Thompkins and I were in charge of carry the herring via buckets to the trucks.Double checking to see if any were bluebacks[which died when put in a trap] and then placing them in the tanks while making sure the aerators were working.. The walk across the sand carrying those buckets filled with herring was a long one which strained your muscles and I figured that I had to get a job promotion, maybe move to a new firm to get the privilege to throw the net rather than carry the bucket.But it was a privilege to fish with those guys so I didnt mind being a bucket boy all that much.And doing it by group effort let you fill your traps all that much quicker.
And Ill tell you a secret which I ask you not to tell too many.. George made up a yoke.. Yep a yoke.. George was religous and I think he must have gotten the idea in church.. It was similar to what you saw in Sampson and Delila.. Wed fill the buckets with water, put the herring in them.. Put the yoke on, put a bucket on each side of the yoke and head up to the truck with it on.. You had to travel at a certain pace with that yoke on to keep the buckets balanced but once you got the knack it was a hell of alot easier than carrying a bucket in each hand..if my wife ever saw this or if my clients ever found this out I would have been dead..
As I said before when it came time to fish youd have to fill your livewell[mine held 17 buckets of water all of which I had to haul up about 8 to 10 feet], make sure that it was working, go to your trap and net some bait[not always the easiest thing to do.. Then head down to fish.. If the ocean water was cold your herring needed to acclimate themselves to it from the warmer backwaters where they had resided..Not all could make the change and it was frustrating to me to put in all that work and watch the herring roll over on its back..Next when it would swim out you would often find out that bluefish dont neccesarily show themselves, they would just assasinate your herring without warning nor mercy.. Youd just have to move or go thru alot of herring to get a bass.Yea give me a danny plug or bomber and I could cut out all that stuff but I liked the comraderie and belief that a 30, 40 pounder or even bigger fish was there to be had on live bait. It never happened and after awhile I figured that me and livelining were not meant for each other but it was fun while it lasted.
The biggest bass that was caught while I was fishing back then was young Stevie Keanes 59 lb fish.It was taken right off Beacon about 100 yards south of the pipe.The biggest bass caught with any fishing with me was 33 lbs. 25 to 30 lb fish were regularly taken on herring off the jetties back then but both Bobby and Joe Polatto will tell you that there were bigger fish taken back in the late 70s and early 80s..
I guess that Ive gottn long winded in my old age but will try to bring you up to current spring fishing next time.
Responses:
[43] [44] [12]
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Date: April 13, 2008 at 20:37:38
From: miker, [pool-72-88-245-221.nwrknj.east.verizon.net]
Subject: Re: Spring Time 2006 Spring Lake NJ Jetty Fishing Part 3
Well it took me close to two years to get up the gumption to finish the story, becuase its depressing..I participated in the MS Walk today and we walked along the Belmar and Spring Lake Beaches and passed most of the jetties which were so famous and filled with spring fish starting sometime in late April and running right thru spring and early summer. The view hit me right inthe stomach.
As I said the jetties were filled with guys livelining herring and bunker. Here at the shore because of the Asbury Park Press local fishermen were given alot of attention, tourney result were alway publisized and top local fishermen had articles written about them and were frequently called and quoted about the local conditions. Joe Pallato and Bob Mathews were always in paper and Mike Holwitz had a full page spread done on him and his 9 50s from the beach..Joe Geiser wrote the fishing coloumn for the press and liked giving attention to beach fishermen.
For those out of the area you might rememember that every time Nj was hit with a strong NE storm a local town called Sea Bright would be in the news and a news story would be run about how the ocan might just come over the Wall and run clear to teh river ruining all the ocean front homes along that stretch..Every storm kept cost the Fed gov an arm and leg to kept those sobs in their houses...Solution, build up the beaches with a sand project.
When I first heard of this I didnt think too much of it and figured it would just be to infill the beaches up the north end of the county which I didnt fish all that much.. What I didnt realize was what was instore.They intended and did fill in with very few exceptions every friggin beach between Sandy Hook and Manasquan inlet with millions and millions of dollars worth of sand.
It took them about 5 years but they did it. Now I thought the sand would only last until the first storm or two but wow was I wrong..Its still here over 10 years later.The sand has had the effect of turning the intertidal zone into beach flats.. Shallow water where deep water roamed at all stages of the tide.And despite my initial thoughts storms only make the condition worse because it drags sand higher on the beach into the water making the water around the jetties more shallow..
Not content with just ruining the beaches they went after the the Spring Lake jetties with a passion.. CHoped them up move rocks around, took out their base and turned them into rock piles. little islands surrounded by water only a fraction of how deep it used to be. Killed for years all the plant and animal life that grew around those jetties that used to attract bait and bigger fish.
The sand project did a number on Wreck pond where the "Pipe" is.Filled it with sand. The pond attracted herring,eels, and smaller bait every year but with the gateway choked those bait started to stay away in numbers and over time few looked to it to capture herring.The pond is and has been half polluted so nonecould figure out what do to clean it up..
You see after storms during the summer visitors could see and smell the crap washing into the waters from it.So instead of just cleaning it out the stupid SOBs decided to just extend it further out into the ocean.
They took out the bulkhead that surrounded it and moved it about a 200 yards out into the middle of the Atlantic so non could get to its mouth..End of netting herring there at all..
Now we still ahve fish along the beaches at various stages of the year, but we no longer have the big jetties that liveliners fished with big baits to catch big fish.And lets say a month from now you can ride along the beaches here in Spring Lake and youll see bait fishermen hugging the sides of those old jetties and some flyfishermen and pluggers here and there but you will see very few liveliners in Spring Lake.The conditions just dont warrant it.
Bob Matthews now fishes the canal,I hear Mike Holwitz fiishes from a boat. Mickey Albert can still be seen livelining Manasquan now and then but I havent seen him in Spring Lake in years..And the rest of the crowd like the rest of us are getting old..
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Date: April 16, 2008 at 22:54:33
From: merch, [ip68-99-171-185.ri.ri.cox.net]
Subject: Re: Spring Time 2006 Spring Lake NJ Jetty Fishing Part 3
Thanks Miker. We've been waiting a while for a folow up.
It's not over yet, and I'm sure there is still time for a happy ending... or begining.
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