Started yesterday in 26-degree temps at 4:30am and wasn't even the first guy to Dolphin Beach/Quogue. No shortage of intel; lots of guys catching fish still, mostly rats. I'd heard of them being taken on soft plastics, mag darters, bucktails with teasers... you name it. I knew they'd been feeding on sand eels for about the last 3 weeks, but it didn't seem to matter what the lure was. Young bass aren't smart. I'm partial to the A27s because they're cheap, you can cast them a mile, and when the bass are hitting sand eels, they match perfectly. I had a white tube on mine. First light was appearing on the eastern horizon and I was getting nothing, so I moved west to WHB. Similarly, I was about the third guy to get there. I took a short drive to have some space and settled on one of the jetties. At first, with the A27, I had nothing, even though I could see the telltale swirls of what I thought was bait right in the break. So I switched to a white Hogie and was hooked up as soon as it hit the water. Microbass. I had three in about 15 minutes and the bite seemed to dissipate. The sun was rising and guys were leaving.
Through my binocs I could see blitzes about a mile off. Conditions were perfect and I was hoping for something bigger than 12 inches, so I launched and headed out after them. I caught up after about 20 minutes and found more of the same. Got them on a Crystal Minnow, but neglected to bring more than my deep trolling lures. In 35 feet of water I couldn't get to the bigger bass that I was marking at the bottom. So I picked at the small ones until they too dissipated and moved on.
Easy landing in ideal conditions.[ATTACH type="full"]12726[/ATTACH]