2024 fall shad run has begun

[NJ219bands]

Went fishing 🎣 in Manasquan Inlet this evening on a cloudy, cool day with a strong east wind on the incoming tide. Caught, tagged and released 2 fluke with a plain hook Ava A-17 and also caught a hickory shad on my brother John’s homemade pink synthetic bucktail teaser. Lost a shad that jumped and threw the hook in the middle of the inlet. Fishermen to my right caught a lot of blackfish on crabs 🦀. I didn’t get a hit while plugging at night. One school of minnows jumped out of the inlet near the rocks 🪨 at dusk. Two people fell on the jetty. Squid 🦑 fishermen had two green lights underwater at night in Point Pleasant. I took photos. Game Warden caught tog poachers recently.

[Gerry Zagorski]

Great report! I saw the Gannets for the first time a few days back and that's a good sign there are Shad or Herring around.

Did you see if those green lights attracted any fish?


Speaking of Herring, I had a buddy who was an old time surf rat back in the 70s. They used to go down to the outlet/flume where Deal Lake lets out into the ocean and get Herring to live line in the surf. If the Stipers were around you were almost guaranteed a fish. The herring would come up into the lake from the ocean to do their thing and return back to the ocean. Mother nature is pretty amazing.

[NJ219bands]

I don’t know if the green light fishermen caught anything but they weren’t there tonight and I didn’t get a hit.