From the Pinelands to the Sea - NJ Lifer Trip

[Johnsfolly]

Still trying for lifers since I got back from Missouri trip. Tried for fathead minnows in a pond up in PA. Saw them and had bites but no hook ups before the rain drove us off the pond. Did catch one juvenile goldfish.

Last Friday we fished a creek out in western MD hoping for longnose dace or silverjaw minnows. Caught lots of variety including common shiner, spotfin shiners, swallowtail shiners, bluehead chubs, smallmouth bass, redbreast sunfish, bluegill and green sunfish. 

But the lifers were elusive and we looked towards our next trip (the next day 😉). We headed to the pinelands portion of NJ hoping to find and catch banded sunfish. If there was still time left to the day we would try a couple of salty spots.

Not hard to see why this area was called the pinelands. Lots of pines and lots of cranberry bogs and farms. Also a lot of the tannic acid swamp loving species like mud sunfish, swamp darters, banded and black-banded sunfish.

We got to the target location and the water was shallow but there were a lot of fish in the deeper areas. It was almost too easy to catch a lifer banded sunfish but we did anyways 😁.

Livie's banded

We caught a few each then got lunch and hit Tuckerton bay in hopes of catching a northern kingfish.

You can just see some buildings in Atlantic city in this photo.

We used a double hook rig with bloodworms and a 2 oz sinker. We only caught croaker, spot and silver perch.

The bite was still pretty slow and after an hour we headed to Barnegat inlet. We enjoy dropping baits (aka punching holes) down into the rocks of the jetty for cunner and tautog, aka blackfish. There is something very satisfying when you drop the sinker, bounce it a little bit and have it drop your bait into a deep hole that you couldn't see. You just know that you are going to get a bite. Getting the fish out of that same hole may be a much bigger challenge.

Still fishing the bloodworms on a single hook rig with small one oz sinker, we ended up with black sea bass, cunner and tautogs.

Finally caught a lifer for both of us and had a good day. As the sun was setting, we headed home.

 

[BilletHead]

Great trip and report John 😃.