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I had not slept in days but I was tactically sound. I had all my so-called ducks in line. I had all my homework done. I studied, I read, I watched others. I guess an absence of a leader, a mentor if you will in my life really hurt me. The lengths of my frustration were boundless. I read in Geiser’s column over and over again that they were getting lots of stripers in Bay Head and Deal, they even had names of guys and the sizes of the bass they caught. It couldn’t all have been made up. They could have been put there just to fill me with false expectation. Right? To make me look stupid? I had been seeking out my first linesider for a year and a half now and still had not felt what others had claimed to have felt. I mean I did catch hundreds of them, thousands of them, but do they count when they are in your dreams?

I was tired of catching little bluefish. I was tired of “you should have been here yesterday.” My failure drove me onward. I knew that Geiser couldn’t have been totally lying to everyone. I did believe that there were fish out there. Somewhere. I checked my bucket for all the necessities. Knife, sinkers, rigs, I went through my surf bag, Bombers, Bombers, more Bombers, and some metal. That was good. I had a plan in line. I was, “going to work” early, and I was “working late.” “See ya later.” The door closed behind me. I knew Island Beach had been hot so I made tracks for the latest and greatest “hotspot.” I was starting wonder about all these so called hotspots. Every time I got to one it ended up being a cold spot, at least for me it was. It was becoming more of a sightseeing trip for me than it was a fishing trip. I would show up at a spot and be like “wow, so this is the place every one’s been talking about, hmmm, nice place.” I didn’t know any better. I checked in at Betty and Nick’s. The chili there is knock out, the pictures on the wall always built my thread thin confidence, I would cynically look through the weigh-in log. Muttering to myself words that could not be spoken out loud. I loaded up with fresh peanut bunker and a sandwich for lunch. I parked on the south end of the parking lot at the second bathing beach. Looked like a good a spot as any. I was confident! You would not have known that I had not yet beached one of these elusive devils. My expectations again raced like they had so many times before. Failure was not an option, I humped my shit over those dunes till I cursed and then I sweat and then I gasped for air. I asked myself “Why do I do this?” But I won’t go there.

I looked at my watch. 8:30 a.m. I was psyched. I had all day to finally catch my first striper. I set up two rods. I baited them up with fresh peanuts and cast them into the sea. It was a beautiful November day in central New Jersey, the ocean was flat and full of striped bass, I just knew it, I could just feel it, life was great. The excitement raged deep within. I felt that I could sing opera that morning, so I did. Every living creature within the sound of my voice exited the area. I personally thought I was doing pretty good myself. I looked around and sat down on my bucket, I waited. And waited. And waited. I checked by bait religiously. And I waited. I waved to the redneck in the red pick up with Pennsylvania plates 50 yards north of me. He waved back. I guess he didn’t hear me sing. I waved to the other guy in his truck 70 yards south of me. He didn’t wave back. I guess he did hear me sing. I saw nothing caught. I caught nothing. I waited.

Suddenly, I began to notice large black pools of dirty water. I rose inquisitively from my bucket. A hole? I thought. No, it was moving. And then I saw another one and it was moving. And then another, it too was moving. There were some close to the beach too. Then it hit me like a sledge hammer on the back of my noggin. “Bunker!!” I had never actually seen them alive or swimming, but I had heard and read plenty about them. I wasn’t totally dumb. I knew that where there were bunker there were blues and, and, YES….BASS. I rifled through my equipment in a panic, “Oh treble hook, treble hook, I know I have one in here some where…” “Bingo” I tied one on as fast as I could. If me and an elephant had a race to see who could have tied it on quicker, the elephant would have dogged my butt. I cast out and jerked back. “Got one!” My heart raced. I dropped it down on waited for the mammoth eruption of a 40 pound striper that would soon inhale my offering and fight me to one of our deaths. Any minute now, any minute. An hour and a half went by. 10 bunker and 10 heartbreaks later I sat my ass back down on the bucket. The redneck made his way towards me with a pale in one hand. “Howdy” he fired at me. “Get any bass?” he politely asked. “Yeah I got about a hundred so far and I was just resting my arms and trying to get up some more energy for when the fishing starts to really pick up,” I thought to myself. Like he didn’t know. “No, nothing. You?” I asked back searchingly. “No, just these bunker, and I wanted you to have them,” he said. “Oh well thank you, that is very kind but I was wondering if you wanted some of these ones I caught.” “Ah no.” Red replied, “ I got plenty.” I was strangely moved by the friendliness of this fellow surfcaster from the west. I stared down at the pile of fresh bunker that now laid at my feet. I stared at redneck walking back down to his truck. I stared back at the bunker. “What the hell am I going to do with 22 adult sized bunker?” I thought to myself.

When you are as hungry to catch an old pajama’s as I was, you look for every possible advantage, every possible edge, anything that could put you onto fish. I thought about a book that I had recently read on surffishing (the book is no longer in print), the fellow who wrote the book spoke of ways that the casters of his day would chum for bass and blues. They would punch a bunch of holes into a can of fish based cat food and tie it to a string and then to the wader belt and let it drag behind them in the wash. The juice sweeten the water so to speak. Then another trick that the book had mentioned jumped into my mind. Fishermen would go down to their favorite fishing hole at low tide, dig a hole, and then bury some fish guts or leftover fish heads. They would then come back again at high tide and fish and collect their bounty. I pondered this thought briefly and then began digging. The tide was low but starting to flood. The conditions were perfect. I chunked all but a couple of the bunks, took them down and dumped them into the hole. The water washed up and quickly filled the hole with sand. I retreated to my bucket. I sat and watch the tide come in. My rods stood tall but lonely. I watched Redneck polishing his tailgate with his ass all afternoon. The other guy to the south fell asleep with his feet hanging out his driver side door. He was hoping for the best, huh?

The tide rose and the sun fell. My hope and expectation had quickly turned to anxiety and frustration. Words not to be heard by women and young children fell from my lips in abundance.

The sun had fallen below the dunes and I began to gather my stuff for the hump back to the truck. I was ready to quit this game they call striped bass fishing. I didn’t believe in it. I knew that somewhere a sea god, King Triton, King Neptune, one of them bastards was laughing his ass off at my expense. I was really starting to feel like Pinocchio on Pleasure Island, you know where he disobeyed and he started to turn into a jack ass. I was checking to see if I had began to grow a tail when my drag let out a scream. I sprinted to my spike, grabbed my rod and brought it back hard, she stopped dead in her tracks, “Yes!,” I yelled,. just then the great fish came off. “NO!!!” The words not fit for women and children returned with a vengeance and now with volume. I quickly reeled in, put on a new bunker and cast it into the fast fading light. I prayed as hard as I could and before I could say ‘amen’ the rear drag on the bait feeder screamed again. This time when I brought her back the hook found it’s place. The front drag emptied and I was in euphoria. It took me a little while to negotiate this fish because to this point my biggest was a whopping three pound blue. I must have backed up all the way to the dune before a 12 pound bluefish was finally pulled from the water. Those words again returned only this time it was in celebratory praise to… whomever. It was by far the biggest fish that I had ever caught from the surf. I re-baited and again cast. BAM and sing. We went at again. This time more composed I washed another hefty blue onto the sand. “There must be lots of them out there,” I reasoned with myself. Instead of re-baiting this time I grabbed my plugging rod and snapped on a 5 ½” Rebel G-Finish in pearl and hurried to the waters edge and cast. A couple cranks of the handle and the plug was feverishly hit and the line peeled of my reel. I think tears of happiness were probably rolling down my cheeks by this time. I washed up another blue onto the sand, but I quickly noticed that this particular blue had stripes running down it’s side. My first bass had finally come to rest at my feet from the legendary waters of Island Beach. I could not believe it. A dream had come to fruition. A 28,” 10 pound striper was my trophy. Words can’t simply express this emotion. Can you remember your first?

Now that I had immediately graduated to experienced bass veteran, and was now ready to write books and start my own guide service, I guess my first important investment would have had to be a light of some sort, as the night was now upon me. Carrying my equipment wasn’t bad enough but add three fish and no light and you have…LOSER. Or should I say LOST.

My adrenaline rush had given me enough energy to sustain me. I needed every bit of that to find my way through the darkness, and back to my truck. After much pain and prayer-filled promises, I eventually make it back, and a good day had come to an end.

Well the “trick” worked. Can you believe that? Oh, and I forgot to mention, that in all my excitement I did look to my left and to my right, to see how “Red” and “Sleeper” were doing. To my disbelief, both sat in the light of their lanterns, enjoying the quiet, cool November night. Many lessons were learned well that day.


The Trick by DJ Muller I had not slept in days but I was tactically sound. I had all my so-called ducks in line. I had all my homework done. I studied, I read, I watched others. I guess an absence of a leader, a mentor if you will in my life really hurt me. The lengths of my frustration were boundless. I read in Geiser’s column over and over again that they were getting lots of stripers in Bay Head and Deal, they even had names of guys and the sizes of the bass they caught. It couldn’t all have been made up. They could have been put there just to fill me with false expectation. Right? To make me look stupid? I had been seeking out my first linesider for a year and a half now and still had not felt what others had claimed to have felt. I mean I did catch hundreds of them, thousands of them, but do they count when they are in your dreams? I was tired of catching little bluefish. I was tired of “you should have been here yesterday.” My failure drove me onward. I knew that Geiser couldn’t have been totally lying to everyone. I did believe that there were fish out there. Somewhere. I checked my bucket for all the necessities. Knife, sinkers, rigs, I went through my surf bag, Bombers, Bombers, more Bombers, and some metal. That was good. I had a plan in line. I was, “going to work” early, and I was “working late.” “See ya later.” The door closed behind me. I knew Island Beach had been hot so I made tracks for the latest and greatest “hotspot.” I was starting wonder about all these so called hotspots. Every time I got to one it ended up being a cold spot, at least for me it was. It was becoming more of a sightseeing trip for me than it was a fishing trip. I would show up at a spot and be like “wow, so this is the place every one’s been talking about, hmmm, nice place.” I didn’t know any better. I checked in at Betty and Nick’s. The chili there is knock out, the pictures on the wall always built my thread thin confidence, I would cynically look through the weigh-in log. Muttering to myself words that could not be spoken out loud. I loaded up with fresh peanut bunker and a sandwich for lunch. I parked on the south end of the parking lot at the second bathing beach. Looked like a good a spot as any. I was confident! You would not have known that I had not yet beached one of these elusive devils. My expectations again raced like they had so many times before. Failure was not an option, I humped my shit over those dunes till I cursed and then I sweat and then I gasped for air. I asked myself “Why do I do this?” But I won’t go there. I looked at my watch. 8:30 a.m. I was psyched. I had all day to finally catch my first striper. I set up two rods. I baited them up with fresh peanuts and cast them into the sea. It was a beautiful November day in central New Jersey, the ocean was flat and full of striped bass, I just knew it, I could just feel it, life was great. The excitement raged deep within. I felt that I could sing opera that morning, so I did. Every living creature within the sound of my voice exited the area. I personally thought I was doing pretty good myself. I looked around and sat down on my bucket, I waited. And waited. And waited. I checked by bait religiously. And I waited. I waved to the redneck in the red pick up with Pennsylvania plates 50 yards north of me. He waved back. I guess he didn’t hear me sing. I waved to the other guy in his truck 70 yards south of me. He didn’t wave back. I guess he did hear me sing. I saw nothing caught. I caught nothing. I waited. Suddenly, I began to notice large black pools of dirty water. I rose inquisitively from my bucket. A hole? I thought. No, it was moving. And then I saw another one and it was moving. And then another, it too was moving. There were some close to the beach too. Then it hit me like a sledge hammer on the back of my noggin. “Bunker!!” I had never actually seen them alive or swimming, but I had heard and read plenty about them. I wasn’t totally dumb. I knew that where there were bunker there were blues and, and, YES….BASS. I rifled through my equipment in a panic, “Oh treble hook, treble hook, I know I have one in here some where…” “Bingo” I tied one on as fast as I could. If me and an elephant had a race to see who could have tied it on quicker, the elephant would have dogged my butt. I cast out and jerked back. “Got one!” My heart raced. I dropped it down on waited for the mammoth eruption of a 40 pound striper that would soon inhale my offering and fight me to one of our deaths. Any minute now, any minute. An hour and a half went by. 10 bunker and 10 heartbreaks later I sat my ass back down on the bucket. The redneck made his way towards me with a pale in one hand. “Howdy” he fired at me. “Get any bass?” he politely asked. “Yeah I got about a hundred so far and I was just resting my arms and trying to get up some more energy for when the fishing starts to really pick up,” I thought to myself. Like he didn’t know. “No, nothing. You?” I asked back searchingly. “No, just these bunker, and I wanted you to have them,” he said. “Oh well thank you, that is very kind but I was wondering if you wanted some of these ones I caught.” “Ah no.” Red replied, “ I got plenty.” I was strangely moved by the friendliness of this fellow surfcaster from the west. I stared down at the pile of fresh bunker that now laid at my feet. I stared at redneck walking back down to his truck. I stared back at the bunker. “What the hell am I going to do with 22 adult sized bunker?” I thought to myself. When you are as hungry to catch an old pajama’s as I was, you look for every possible advantage, every possible edge, anything that could put you onto fish. I thought about a book that I had recently read on surffishing (the book is no longer in print), the fellow who wrote the book spoke of ways that the casters of his day would chum for bass and blues. They would punch a bunch of holes into a can of fish based cat food and tie it to a string and then to the wader belt and let it drag behind them in the wash. The juice sweeten the water so to speak. Then another trick that the book had mentioned jumped into my mind. Fishermen would go down to their favorite fishing hole at low tide, dig a hole, and then bury some fish guts or leftover fish heads. They would then come back again at high tide and fish and collect their bounty. I pondered this thought briefly and then began digging. The tide was low but starting to flood. The conditions were perfect. I chunked all but a couple of the bunks, took them down and dumped them into the hole. The water washed up and quickly filled the hole with sand. I retreated to my bucket. I sat and watch the tide come in. My rods stood tall but lonely. I watched Redneck polishing his tailgate with his ass all afternoon. The other guy to the south fell asleep with his feet hanging out his driver side door. He was hoping for the best, huh? The tide rose and the sun fell. My hope and expectation had quickly turned to anxiety and frustration. Words not to be heard by women and young children fell from my lips in abundance. The sun had fallen below the dunes and I began to gather my stuff for the hump back to the truck. I was ready to quit this game they call striped bass fishing. I didn’t believe in it. I knew that somewhere a sea god, King Triton, King Neptune, one of them bastards was laughing his ass off at my expense. I was really starting to feel like Pinocchio on Pleasure Island, you know where he disobeyed and he started to turn into a jack ass. I was checking to see if I had began to grow a tail when my drag let out a scream. I sprinted to my spike, grabbed my rod and brought it back hard, she stopped dead in her tracks, “Yes!,” I yelled,. just then the great fish came off. “NO!!!” The words not fit for women and children returned with a vengeance and now with volume. I quickly reeled in, put on a new bunker and cast it into the fast fading light. I prayed as hard as I could and before I could say ‘amen’ the rear drag on the bait feeder screamed again. This time when I brought her back the hook found it’s place. The front drag emptied and I was in euphoria. It took me a little while to negotiate this fish because to this point my biggest was a whopping three pound blue. I must have backed up all the way to the dune before a 12 pound bluefish was finally pulled from the water. Those words again returned only this time it was in celebratory praise to… whomever. It was by far the biggest fish that I had ever caught from the surf. I re-baited and again cast. BAM and sing. We went at again. This time more composed I washed another hefty blue onto the sand. “There must be lots of them out there,” I reasoned with myself. Instead of re-baiting this time I grabbed my plugging rod and snapped on a 5 ½” Rebel G-Finish in pearl and hurried to the waters edge and cast. A couple cranks of the handle and the plug was feverishly hit and the line peeled of my reel. I think tears of happiness were probably rolling down my cheeks by this time. I washed up another blue onto the sand, but I quickly noticed that this particular blue had stripes running down it’s side. My first bass had finally come to rest at my feet from the legendary waters of Island Beach. I could not believe it. A dream had come to fruition. A 28,” 10 pound striper was my trophy. Words can’t simply express this emotion. Can you remember your first? Now that I had immediately graduated to experienced bass veteran, and was now ready to write books and start my own guide service, I guess my first important investment would have had to be a light of some sort, as the night was now upon me. Carrying my equipment wasn’t bad enough but add three fish and no light and you have…LOSER. Or should I say LOST. My adrenaline rush had given me enough energy to sustain me. I needed every bit of that to find my way through the darkness, and back to my truck. After much pain and prayer-filled promises, I eventually make it back, and a good day had come to an end. Well the “trick” worked. Can you believe that? Oh, and I forgot to mention, that in all my excitement I did look to my left and to my right, to see how “Red” and “Sleeper” were doing. To my disbelief, both sat in the light of their lanterns, enjoying the quiet, cool November night. Many lessons were learned well that day.