Hello,
I'm Jim Peel I'm the one that bought the reel from Mark and sent the pictures. I fish all most every weekend with my son and a few friends. I’m lucky enough to be within 2 hours of some great surf fishing. We fish from North New Jersey to Maryland.
I will try and post some reports and pictures from my fishing throughout the year. My fishing season usually starts in the beginning of March and runs until December or January depending on the water temps. This year the water never really got below 38 degrees so we fished until the beginning of February. Here’s a breakdown of the fishing year for me:
March Stripe Bass start to migrate north to either their spawning grounds or post spawn to the cooler waters off of Cape Cod. This usually lasts from March until about the middle of May. I will not keep any fish over 35 inches this time of year as they tend to be the bigger females and can lay approximately 150,000 eggs per pound. The males are mostly under the 35 inch mark but there is no clear way to tell so I limit myself to one or two fish during this time of the year and tag and release the others. Along with the striper movement the bigger blue fish will start to show. Most of the fish will be in the 3 to 8 pound range but I’ve caught them up to 16 pounds in the surf. They are one of the most prolific feeders on the beach. When they are schooled up and actively feeding they will hit anything that moves. Lots of fun with a mouth full of teeth.
With May and June we get a lot of our smaller summer species. Kings (whiting), Croakers, Spot, and flounder most of these fish except for the occasional flounder will be in the 1-2 pound range.
July brings in the warmer water and the Sharks as Mark already told you we catch Sanbar, Duskies, Spimmers, Hammerheads, and Black Tips. They range is size from 2 foot to about 8 foot. Some people have landed bigger I have just never seen them. The primary method for catching these bigger sharks is to kayak out big bloody baits. Some guys use size 25 hooks and tuna fish heads as bait. Before people started using kayaks some of the old timers used to swim the baits out. Rods are standup off shore tuna rods with equivalent reels. 50 or 100 pound mono to steel leaders. You can also catch them on casted baits too. I use a regular surf rod with a little bigger real (peen 535 or and Avet MXL).
September bring the big red Drum up to our waters for a few weeks. 8 oz and big bait is the typical method here. Typical roods are Rainshadow 1569 with Abu 7000. Drum are like freight trains and tough to turn. I’ve seen more then one spiked rod leap out of its holder and shoot of to the water.
November bring the Stripers and Blues past us one move time and depending on the water Temp’s we will catch them until the water drops below 40 degrees for an extended period.
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