After a 2hr trip down rt.539 from Hillsborough, my marathon spring striper trip was in gear. I got down to Lbi @ around 5pm for a quick few hours before I turned and burned back north.
I was all set up on the beach and fishing by 5:30. The south wind really had shit goin haywire and I found it very difficult to hold with 8 oz. Current was ripping north which made it impossible to spike the rod because the sinker wouldn't stick.
Around 6:15 the dude next to me hooked up and landed a nice 37" striper.
A little after the excitement died down I was scanning the horizon when I saw a huge splash. It was a pod of dolphins attacking something. Yelled to the guys next to me and they said they were feeding on bunker but i knew it had to be something bigger by the splashes. I finally saw the unmistakable white belly of striper get thrown out of the water by one of the porpoises. Needless to say I thought I was hallucinating.
There was finally a window at around 7:30-8:45pm where the wind died down and so did the current. About this time my drag my drag started goin. Apparently something huge liked my bunker head and decided to inhale it. I let it run for a little bit, then I tightened the drag and set the hook.
The fish fought impressively and after a few minutes I was reaching under the gill plate and lifting up my personal best surf striper.
This is where the story gets interesting, I noticed the stripers tail had a piece missing and at first I thought it was just a deformation. I chalked it up to the fish swallowing some toxic waste or a little too much mercury. Upon closer inspection I noticed that the tail bones were freshly broken and it was still bleeding. The piece of tail missing has the unmistakable outline of a bottlenose. This fish was almost dolphin food this evening but the higher ups on the food chain won again.
Dolphin Bite
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I was all set up on the beach and fishing by 5:30. The south wind really had shit goin haywire and I found it very difficult to hold with 8 oz. Current was ripping north which made it impossible to spike the rod because the sinker wouldn't stick.
Around 6:15 the dude next to me hooked up and landed a nice 37" striper.
A little after the excitement died down I was scanning the horizon when I saw a huge splash. It was a pod of dolphins attacking something. Yelled to the guys next to me and they said they were feeding on bunker but i knew it had to be something bigger by the splashes. I finally saw the unmistakable white belly of striper get thrown out of the water by one of the porpoises. Needless to say I thought I was hallucinating.
There was finally a window at around 7:30-8:45pm where the wind died down and so did the current. About this time my drag my drag started goin. Apparently something huge liked my bunker head and decided to inhale it. I let it run for a little bit, then I tightened the drag and set the hook.
The fish fought impressively and after a few minutes I was reaching under the gill plate and lifting up my personal best surf striper.
This is where the story gets interesting, I noticed the stripers tail had a piece missing and at first I thought it was just a deformation. I chalked it up to the fish swallowing some toxic waste or a little too much mercury. Upon closer inspection I noticed that the tail bones were freshly broken and it was still bleeding. The piece of tail missing has the unmistakable outline of a bottlenose. This fish was almost dolphin food this evening but the higher ups on the food chain won again.
Dolphin Bite
