Well, I guess I tipped Mother Nature off that the weather was too much like August. Cooler temperatures and a North East storm brought us back to true seasonal weather conditions. The fishing has started a Fall change-over. Fluke and Weakfish have been thinning out of the bay for a few weeks now. If you're a bay fisherman your options are limited to catching Stripers, Herring, and White Perch.

Our best fishing suggestion for this weekend would be to slide up to the mouth of the Mullica River and have some fun catching a few fish out of the fall run of blueback Herring. Mixed under the schools of Herring, you may catch a white perch and even possibly a small Black Drum.

The Striped Bass have shown up everywhere. You surely could catch one in the bay if you were to fish with fresh cut Herring, Bloodworms and Eels. A lot more Stripers would be caught in the back bay areas if all the boats were fishing other "hot spots", rather than just the Little Egg Inlet area. Weakfish and Stripers seem to have similar habits. The Stripers will move into areas where Weakfish have been hanging out during the Summer months. Think about where you have had some of your best Weakfishing this season and spend a little time working that area. Some anglers concentrate their Bass fishing efforts in Grassy Channel and are usually pretty successful. Another Bass fishing area which is commonly overlooked is Main Marsh Thorofare, which is the channel where the inland waterway from Atlantic City meets Great Bay. The first Fall Striped Bass caught by a surf angler at Graveling Point was weighed in on October 12, by Matt Freas. His fish tipped the scale at 17 pounds even and was 37" long. The point is, that this fish was way back in the bay and there have been others. The most interesting keeper Striper of the week was caught in the lagoons where South Spinnaker Drive meets Big Creek.

Want to try something different rather than just drifting along in the inlet this weekend? It requires more work than kicking back and putting your feet up on the gunnel of the boat, though. Jigging or bucktailing will increase your overall catch. Some anglers threw 1 ounce White bucktails with chartreuse grubs along the banks in front of the Coast Guard Station and the banks from the 120 marker pole back to Little Sheepshead Creek and caught Stripers just after high tide. Another technique is to jig the bottom with Hopkins type lures, or a combination of a Hopkins and a Pompano style rig baited with Herring fillets. A four to six ounce Hopkins works better than a lighter lure, because it can be jigged rapidly straight up and down without drifting away from the boat. The heavier weight also helps the lure drop to the bottom quicker when drifting over drop-offs or ledges. If you have some of the Herring put away in the freezer from one of your good fishing trips last week, this is a good opportunity to pull it out and make good use of it. If not, we have plenty of fillets stocked up for the Fall Striper run.