Jamaica Bay, NY May 12th - 15th 2011

It was great finally meeting you, Charlie, and OldBluesGuy and talk some fishing. I am looking forward to going down to the tourney in October if not before and will definitely see you guys at the Shootout. Hopefully, the fishing will be better there.

Hey guys , just wanted to say I had a good time at J-bay and thanks for the laughs and everything. I still have off to Wed. so I had a few sandworms left from one of the boys from canada ( but also thanks to LUNCHBOX for hooking me up too) and wanted to try them in brigantine and was rewarded with 2 short bass and 2 blues till they ran out and switched to bucktail and herring strips and got some more blues and 7 fluke with 1 to take home. At least I was able to get some points up on the KW board. The fluke are here but they just need a good HOT WEEK of weather to fire up better.
Hope to get to fish with you boys during some of the season , thanks again!

Tom

tom thanks for getting me out of Brooklyn i was starting to have a panic attack when that fire truck was rolling up on us

Just to show that I can laugh at myself, I'm posting the electric kayak division winning fish here. Yep, I P-P-Polacked it up! At the end, Bob, Charlie and I are arguing over whether or not this fish counts. This was for our bragging rights mini tourney that we have among ourselves and not for the JBay event.

Are you sure that you guys were really at JBay?

Actually, I think that I did run into Chris at one point. I was working a school of bass & blues with the hogys then a few t&w guys came by, I said hi and we introduced ourselves but I didn't realize that it was you.

Overall I thought the fishing was a let down and I even fished for blues on purpose for a while just to watch the topwater explosions. I was really hoping for weakfish because we can't catch them around here, that is 2 years in a row with no weaks after such an epic 2009.

The good news is that I got back here to find plenty of bass around. It is time!!

The fishing had been on fire for two weeks prior to the tourney, but last week it comparitively shut down. I fished Thursday and Friday afternoons, and that was it . . . .live about a half hour away so no reason for me to camp there.

In terms of the weakfish, they have disappeared from our area again. . . . I target them extensively during the summer and they did not show in any of my usual areas last year in spring or summer last year, after the spawners acting suicidal the year before during the spring in 2009. The fishery was declining after strong runs in 2006, 2007, and 2008. The spring run in '09 at JBAY was epic, and I caught a bunch during the summer run in the Great South Bay too in '09 . . . . but last year and this year . . . . gone. I don't think they will be back for a few years. The gill netters aren't even getting them and hothing is coming back to spawn - spoke to a bunker netter who caught one in JBAY last week in a net with the bunker - small 16". Problem that the weaks face is that they migrate out around the first week of October and there are blues and stripers waiting for them at the inlet and just decimate them. Slot limits for the bigger fish would go a long way to re-establishing the fishery.