Cape May Inlet - Cape May, NJ Fishing Report on 16th Dec, 2023

Every now and again everything comes together just the way you hoped. Today was one of those days. Jesse and I ran out into the ocean in hopes of finding a striped bass, and if not, some tog. We came out of the inlet and found a small fleet of boats aimlessly circling, dragging Mojo's or spoons, or whatever. We cruised past and kept an eyeball on them for signs of fish. Not a single bent rod. So, we pressed on. Around this time my phone began to buzz. I received texts from my friends Justin and George. Both were telling me there were some stripers being caught further South. So, we headed South. We looked for signs of life along the way; a splash, boil, birds, whales, anything. There were sea ducks everywhere. Hundreds of them. They'd erupt from the water splashing as they took flight. Every flock caught our eye. Then we saw the fleet. There were boats scattered all around, close to shore, and further out. Some were trolling, others aimlessly casting. Every now and again we'd see a small fish come over a gunnel. We poked around still searching for a sign. Then we got one. A huge bird play in tight to the beach. There was one boat already there, another raced in, and we were closing in fast. We deployed jigs to the bottom and snapped them up in hopes they would be intercepted by a cruising striper. We got our wish. I hooked up first, Jesse was close behind. We each landed 32-33" stripers. We missed a few, or had the hooks spit, and landed a few more each. We found if we hung out and let everyone else leave and chase the birds we would have school after school of stripers swim beneath us. It played well in our favor throughout the day. Once the bite petered out we cruised around looking for the next bite. It didn't take long. A cloud of birds formed a short distance away with stripers erupting from the water below. Birds and stripers were devastating bunker schools. We glided up to the melee, I put on a bone Mag Darter, Jesse switched to a silver flutter spoon. Both worked. I hooked a good sized striper on the plug and fought it to the boat. Jesse had just released a nice one. He reached over to grab the plug, which I warned him not to do. Not being one to listen, Mr. Helpful was rewarded with a 4/0 treble buried in his finger. Now I had to carefully grab the thrashing striper, avoid the plug, and keep Jesse's finger from becoming a murder scene, while lifting everyone over the gunnel. Once in the boat, I had to keep the bass from thrashing and further damaging Jesse's impaled finger. I managed to grab the pliers and took hold of the hook. Jesse was able to pull his finger free of the hook. A bit sore, but it still worked. Of course I didn't get a picture of the event. Missed opportunity. We repeated the run and gun rampage throughout the day. The majority of the stripers we landed were 32" to 47". Jesse did manage to catch a 31" keeper. Luck played a role in our second keeper of the day. As we were jigging up another school of stripers, we had a striper splash next to the boat as it drifted past. It just lazily flopped on the surface. We grabbed the net and motored up next to it and scooped it. It was fresh and healthy, but must've been exhausted from a battle and unable to swim. Regardless, he became our second keeper of the day. After we scooped the bass we noticed a huge boil on the surface. We ran up and found a school of bunker being assaulted by stripers from below. We tossed plugs and picked off a few more. Around this time the wind was begining to pick up and white caps were becoming more prominent. With our arms starting to feel the brunt of our many battles today ( we landed well over thirty stripers), we decided to leave the action to go find some tog. We ran to the reef to try some rubble. Jesse picked a short. I fought with the trolling motor. Then we ran to a wreck. Again, a few hits, more motor issues. We ran to another wreck, and it was more of the same. Every time, I would set up over the tasty structure, hit spot lock, the boat would drift off. It was definitely chopper and winder than it had been, but the motor should have held without issue. After resetting ten times I called it quits. We'll just have to come out and chase the tog another day. The early striper action was epic, and more than made up for the trolling motor misery. With luck, the striper migration will continue through Christmas break and we'll get another shot at them before they cruise down South for the winter. Fingers crossed... Tight Lines!