Fishing Around: Birds, Whales, Fishing Tales & Gift Ideas
CJ Walsh proudly displays a Montauk false albacore.
In this season of gratitude, I’m grateful for a year of incredible experiences and for the friends and family with whom I’ve shared them, and I look forward to the final two months of our local fishing and waterfowl seasons.
If you’re in town during the holiday season, you don’t need to be a fisherman to get your outdoors fix or to gather local trivia for your next family dinner. At the Avalon Seawatch, Cape May Bird Observatory’s professional bird watchers count more than 1.1 million migrating birds each fall (Sept. 22 through Dec. 21). A partnership between the Cape May Bird Observatory and Avalon Public Works placed two semi-permanent structures and portable toilets on the beach just steps from the small parking lot at the intersection of 8th Street and Avalon Avenue. The birders can also point out humpback whales that migrate close to shore each fall. The whales follow and feed on massive schools of menhaden, a forage species harvested for use in animal feed and cosmetics. In fact, if you’re strolling along the Sea Isle Promenade or Avalon boardwalk on a nice day, look for a whale’s telltale spout or even a whale breaching!
My dad (Chuck Walsh) and I look forward to these menhaden and humpback whales arriving in South Jersey this season – hopefully the striped bass will accompany them. After last year’s challenging fall run, many Cape May County charter boats have already relocated to Barnegat Light, Point Pleasant and Belmar to improve their striped-bass odds. I look forward to being pleasantly surprised by this season’s migration and to staying warm and dry behind the Superior Marine Canvas Eisenglass enclosure that Brian Reed made for the Chuckwagon, our 23-foot Parker center console.
Recently, Dad and I returned from two days in Montauk, where we fished with longtime friend Capt. Barry Kanavy. Let’s be honest – it wasn’t easy fishing. After endless summer days of September, thousands of striped bass were still in Boston Harbor as of Columbus Day weekend. Under sunny October skies and the influence of the Harbor Moon, thousands of fickle false albacore teased us for hours in Fort Pond Bay. We eventually retreated to prominent sandbars in the Hamptons, where we found striped bass more willing to eat our topwater lures, and we ended our first day with two groups of eager albies on our way home. The next morning, we found more agreeable albies patrolling sandbars along Montauk’s south side, where their electric green flanks glowed in Montauk’s clear waters. False albacore swim so fast that you need to lead your cast like you would lead a crossing target while skeet shooting. Over two long days in the boat, Dad and I collectively almost made a thousand casts and absolutely earned every fish we caught. We returned home inspired to catch fish on artificial lures in our own backyard this fall.
To celebrate Dad’s late-October birthday, we made our first fall exploratory trip behind Avalon. On a new-moon flood tide, we pushed the Chuckwagon into shallow bays, where we found striped bass feeding in creek mouths and on grassy points. Unlike Montauk’s false albacore, our local striped bass readily ate topwater lures cast tight to the bank. Dad struck first with back-to-back 20-inch fish, the first two of more than a dozen striped bass we caught under the midday sun. As the tide ebbed, we retreated toward steeper sod banks, along which we caught two more striped bass drifting live spot from the tank at Sea Isle Bait and Tackle. That evening, my first keeper striped bass of 2017 spent an hour on a smoker in Tom Adelsberger’s backyard, after which the Hank Sauce guys turned a whole fish into the best fish tacos that I’ve ever had.
While we experienced incredible flounder fishing on local reefs in August, back-bay flounder fishing was tough for most of July. But I really enjoyed fishing with Bill Engel, John Epps, Maurizio Lo Piccolo and Frank Pollera, whose collective stories and chop-busting warrant writing at least one book, if not a series.
I feel fortunate that this Avalon Yacht Club crew adopted me this summer. Next year, guys, we’re going to fish even shallower during the midsummer slump, in spite of the greenhead flies that congregate under the boat’s black T-top.
After a summer of afternoon high-tide excursions to Twisties Tavern on the Bay in Strathmere, my friend Gina Mates has officially earned her Chuckwagon Cruise Director credentials, keeping the Chardonnay cold, the lines neatly coiled, and the fenders properly deployed. We shuttled a lot of friends to this dockside gem, who all enjoyed its cold beer and hot nachos. The tide runs quickly through that thoroughfare; please don’t take a boatload of friends to Strathmere until you figure out docking either at Twisties or at the nearby Deauville Inn.
Over Labor Day weekend, my new sister-in-law Abbey Walsh (nee Barron) and I set out for big flounder on the Townsends Inlet Reef, but we were thwarted by a stiff easterly breeze. Surfing south along Seven Mile Beach, we drifted among two distinct pods of bottlenose dolphins feeding along the island’s outer sandbars. The maturing juvenile dolphins seemed more confident and assertive than those that Allegra Rich and I saw one slick calm July afternoon just north of Townsends Inlet, where Frank and Cheryl Pollera often find them. If you haven’t taken friends and family to see our local dolphin, definitely plan on doing so in 2018!
While we have at least four more weeks of striped-bass fishing, my friends Bill Engel and Tom Adelsberger are excited about duck season, which opens Jan. 27. Tom is rehabilitating a really cool Higbee duck boat in his garage. Bill has already re-grassed his latest TDB duck boat to make sure that we’re hidden from the keen eyes of the black ducks that winter in our local marshes. We’re not the only ones chasing ducks – look for the bald eagles that spend each winter feeding on local waterfowl.
Finally, let’s talk about Christmas presents for the boater or fisherman in your family. I recently read Donald Cramer’s “Summer Place: 101 Year History of Fishing and Wreck Diving,” which is chock full of stories about the many decades that he ran the Capt. Cramer party boat from its 96th Street dock (across from Fred’s in Stone Harbor). A Yeti mug keeps coffee hot and cocktails cold for hours. A gift certificate from your favorite bait and tackle shop can as easily be used for boat soap as it can for a fishing reel. Your kids can print their favorite fishing or sunset photos at CVS and frame them as gifts for everyone on your list. The ultimate gift is to sponsor and share an experience, whether a fishing trip with an expert guide, a chartered cruise to the Lobster House, or an opulent yacht week in the Caribbean. No matter what you choose, the fisherman in your life will be grateful.
I’m thankful to everyone with whom I shared a boat, a duck blind, a booze cruise, and a beach walk this year, and I wish all of them and all you great health and happiness until we meet again on this printed page in April 2018.