miles of adult bunker

[torchee]

huge schools of adult bunker at sandy hook sunday morning - from a beach to c beach

very frustrating that no one caught a bass.....
many trying and many a bunker foul hooked but i watched this for 3 hours and didn't see a fish by bait or lure fisherman

[Capt. Debbie]

I've experienced that and left empty handed. BUT, it give you lots of hope for future with this kind of bait environment in our backyard.

MAYBE TOMORROW? :)

[Chrisper4694]

if you see that much bait on the surface with no birds trying to eat them...in my opinion, there is only one reason...no predator fish under them. we saw the same thing Sunday morning. there were some pods out further with fish on them (blues or stripers) but they were up and down so quick your best bet was probably trolling so we just went black fishing.

[RBC67]

Too many bunker :mad:

[AndyS]

Don't worry Omega Company will be taking ALL the bunker next year !!

[tycomps]

http://lowerraritanwatershed.org/2016/12/01/future-of-menhaden-management-public-hearing-12-8-16/

[dakota560]

While I realize bunker and fluke are mutually exclusive fisheries but Virginia's quota is 372 million pounds of a very important forage fish but no problem harvesting them since I'm sure there's significant funds involved for government somewhere in the process and it's all about commercial interests and lobbyists. BUT at the same time recreational guys are going to end up with a significantly reduced harvest of fluke. And by the way what are the bycatch numbers of bass killed when 441,000,000 pounds of bunker are netted by the reduction boats. We have NO representation with our fisheries management.

[dakota560]

if you see that much bait on the surface with no birds trying to eat them...in my opinion, there is only one reason...no predator fish under them. we saw the same thing Sunday morning. there were some pods out further with fish on them (blues or stripers) but they were up and down so quick your best bet was probably trolling so we just went black fishing.

Don't rule out blue fins this time of year.