Fall Primer - Part I

That magic time of year is just around the corner for the New Jersey salty longrodder and for most of us it couldn't get here soon enough. The "summer doldrums" which is as much a nemesis as her winter counterpart "cabin fever" has kept us without a bend in our rod for long enough. The fall however is quickly approaching and it is time for things to heat up once again.

The fall at the Jersey Shore is a special time of year for several reasons. First, most of the crowds are gone and beach access is restored where sunbathers and swimmers once had the right of way. Visual and tactile sensations change as Mother Nature adds a crispness to the morning air and replaces green leaf laden trees with a lollipop array of splendor. Hickory aromas of wood burning stoves permeate the air while armchair quarterbacks rooting for their favorite teams become a national pastime.

But while these things are nice and take center stage for many people the longrodder's focus is more directed to the suds where some of the best fishing that we can experience is finally upon us. It is time for our classic New Jersey fall blitzes to begin as some rather large linesiders along with the arrival of our southern guest the false albacore take center stage and are more than willing to take a fly.

My article this month is going to be the first of a two part series that talks about the best of the fall. A primer if you may to get you ready for some of the rod pretzeling, reel screeching action that is just ahead. Part one will deal with the reappearance of the striped bass and the impetus that draws these most sought after gamefish right to our feet. Next month, part two will discuss one of our most prized trophies, albies on the fly.

The false dawn has captured your attention as just enough light is present to visually scan the surface of the water. There is very little wave action on this cool fall morning and beyond the break the water looks like a hockey rink than as been freshly groomed. As you scan 180 degrees across the surface you notice some subtle swirls and breaks, you also notice some water that is being pushed. These visually clues immediately heighten your awareness as your suspicions are now confirmed. There are bass on the prowl. In front of you just to your left the water suddenly explodes as fingerlike bait is sprayed in every direction. A quick cast just to the outside of the commotion, several strips, and bang you are in. You drive the hook home and your summer dry spell is over as a burly bass rips to the east.

These events are typical of what to expect beginning around the second or third week in September as the first return of large bass once again reappear along our New Jersey beaches. The impetus that triggers this response and puts the bass right at your feet is our annual mullet run. Thousands upon thousands of these tasty little morsels will school up and pour out of our back rivers and bays as they migrate south along the beach. If you have ever watched mullet head south than you have surely seen the beauty of this event. They etch a perfect sketch of the coastline without missing a stroke.

There are a variety of mullet species that range from Nova Scotia to Florida. Here in New Jersey the species that takes center stage is Mugil cephalus, also known as the striped mullet. Other common names for this bait are finger mullet or mushers. This is so because when viewed from the front they are cylindrical and blunt like your fingertips with a similar length. Their bellies are also soft and they can be easily mushed when squeezed between your fingers.

Mullet are bluish gray to silver along their dorsal aspect and fade from silver to white along their bellies. The small baits that we see by the thousands in the fall, under six inches in length, will lack horizontal stripes. Larger mullet will have six or seven horizontal stripes; these baits are often referred to as corn cobs.

It is interesting to note that the larger bass that we see busting on these baits are representative of a good class of teen size bass. They will usually range in size from eight to sixteen pounds. We do not see many larger bass in the twenty, thirty, or forty pound range that we see moving along the beach in the latter part of November and December.

This is so because the first return of these larger fish are what I call local fish. These are bass that are coming from our near inshore waters just off the beach to about seven miles out. Our inshore rockpiles, lumps, and ridges all support a good population of these teen size bass throughout the summer months. Some fish will also come from the deeper holes in our rivers, canals, or bays.

These bass do not make up the school of fish that are much bigger that migrate down from our New England waters as the winter approaches. You can also count on a good number of schoolie and slot size bass that will be right on the mullet. Many times when the blitz is on you can nail one after another of these smaller fish.

The middle of September is usually when we begin to see the annual mullet migration begin along our beaches. Many anglers will associate this behavior with dropping water temperatures and reduced amount of daylight. For the most part this is not the stimulus that drives the bait on their way.

These and other bait migrations are controlled to a great extent by lunar phases. In this case we are looking at the new moon in September that is the key factor. This year this event will occur around the middle of the month on the 17th. New and full moon phases act as the innate calendars that have a significant impact on both migration and spawning patterns of both fish and baits.

Rarely do we see water temperatures drop quickly in September because of a physical property of water known as heat capacity. Water has a high heat capacity, which means in simpler terms that it will warm or cool much more slowly than the land. For example, it's takes more energy to change the temperature of one gram of water 1 Celsius degree than it does to change the temperature of one gram of a solid material the same amount. For this reason we can find air temperatures in the fall to dip down into the forty degree range at night while the ocean temperatures will be holding in the upper sixty degree range. The more significant effect of dropping water temperatures is that it will act as a stimulus to cause fish to feed.