Sandy Hook

I fished in Sandy Hook, NJ yesterday. The last time I was there was two years ago and fished there at least three times, but I caught nothing.

Because Sandy Hook is far away from my home, I did not even try last year even though I believed I got the most powerful and the best fit fly tackles for surf fishing. They are the 13 weight, 16-foot two-handed spey rod and a set of shooting heads for it.

It was time to go again with lots of hope.

I parked at the lot closest to the point of the Hook at 10:30am.

I started practicing the shooting spey casting for an hour until the good fishing tide started. The high tide was around 2 o'clock.

I moved to the point of the Hook after lunch and began fishing.

Nothing happened until the high tide around 2 o'clock.
A fly fisherman came over to me and praised my casting distance. He told me that there would be some actions after the tidal current started backward.



I would say I was casting 3 and even 4 times farther than he.

It seemed he would be the least likely person to catch a fish with his casting distance when it was compared with mine or other lure fishermen's.

I continued casting, but nothing happened.

Other fishermen experienced the same.

The current speeded up backward after 3 o'clock. Many fishermen lined up in the point of the Hook trying to get their first catch.

All of a sudden, the fly fisherman who talked to me earlier, caught a striper.

Soon after he caught one more.





The other fly fishermen immediately moved to his sides and some of them caught stripers too.

Many lure fishermen also took positions close to him, but they caught nothing, neither did I.

So I went to the fly fisherman who caught the first fish and asked what he was using.

He was fishing with the sand eel fly and the sinking tip line.
I was using the sinking line too. I changed my fly to a surf candy fly which is similar to the sand eel fly to make things the same as his.

I continued casting until about 5:30pm when the day light almost ran out, I changed the line to a faster sinking one as my last hope.

After several castings, I felt a strong pull on my hand when I was stripping the line. Finally I caught a striper.
When darkness approached, I left the point of Sandy Hook about 6:30pm.

I saw no lure fishermen caught any striper or blue.

I guessed they could not match their lures with the small sand eel.

I was amazed that the lure fishermen around me couldn't catch any striper or blue while the fly fishermen could.

Usually the lure fishermen catch more fish than we, fly fishermen.

I learned a good lesson. The long distance casting has an advantage, but not always necessary. Matching the fly and the fly reaching to the right depth are very important too.