Sea Bass Startup
By Nick Honachefsky
Oct 24th 2016
Nick Honachefsky dives into the opening of Sea Bass season in New Jersey, and shares a few tips on filling up your cooler.
Jersey anglers have been chomping at the bit for the reopening of black sea bass season, which reinstates on October 22 to December 31 with a 13-inch minimum size limit and 15 fish bag limit. Black sea bass are aggressive predators, are seriously tasty in the frying pan, and fall and winter sea bassing means shots at filling the cooler with solid 3 to 8 pound knuckleheads. It's all about jigging and baiting. The standard sea bass rig is of the three-hook Hi-Lo variety. Start with a 54-inch section of 40-pound Seaguar Fluorocarbon Leader and tie three droppers equidistant 16 inches between them, leaving room for an overhand knot at one end for an 8 to 12-ounce bank sinker and a 100-pound Spro barrel swivel tied on the other end. Fix the droppers with size 2/0 to 3/0 Gamakatsu or Owner Octopus hooks as they are sticky sharp will easily penetrate a sea bass maw on a short strike. Adorn the line above the hook with red beads and slip on a 3 to 4-inch red, purple or green curly tail grub or white or pink Berkley Gulp! Swimmin' Minnow.
For baits, lance a clam tongue, squid strip or bergall strip, manicured to a 3 to 5-inch length and half inch wide cut. Drop the rig to the bottom and wait for the quick strikes. For added efficiency and effectiveness, once you feel one fish hooked, leave the rig down there and wait for the next one or two hits so you can maximize your time and reel up three fish at once instead of one at a time.
For more aggressive strikes, drop down any slim profile jig that can get down to the bottom quickly such as a 8 to 12-ounce Hammered Diamond jig, Bluewater Candy Roscoe Jig, Ava 87 jig, or Deadly Dick #4 Long. Let the jig hit the seafloor and tap it on the ocean bottom, lifting only one foot off the ground and down. Sea bass will inspect and pounce on the shiny attraction with full aggression and many times the true trophy humpbacks of 5 to 8 pounds will take the jig before a bait.
Hot spots off the Jersey coast include any depths in the 150 to 250 foot range, mainly along the 50 to 80 mile wrecks and rockpiles inside the Wilmington Canyon, Baltimore Canyon and Lindenkohl Canyon.