It may feel like fall with the cool north east ocean breeze blowing but Cape May county fishermen’s fall season arrives with the north west wind. The more often the wind blows north west the better the fall fishing will be. It has been over ten years since we were locked into a great north west wind flow. 1998 was the only year in my life I did more beach fishing than bow hunting. I know fishermen here in Cape May County that caught over a thousand keeper stripers in the fall of 1998. When the conditions are right there is no need to use live bait or chum for stripers. I would rather catch one keeper striper on a popping plug or rubber bait than catch one hundred of them using chum or live bait. When you know where to find the stripers under all conditions you will not have the desire to use chum or live bait for stripers. My son and I were enjoying a Sunday afternoon last October striper fishing.On the way to our fishing spot we passed a few guys chumming for stripers with clam bellies, I always slow to a crawl and give as much room as I can when passing fishermen on the hook and fishing. How are you doing my son asked the chummers, five shorts in four hours the guy said. My son said to me that is all they caught! I was surprised they caught anything in the spot they were fishing. No mater how much chum you throw into the water or how lively your bait is you are not going to pull fish from very far away from your location. I like to shut down the outboard engine on my boat a thousand feet from the spot we are going to be fishing and drift into position. The wind was out of the north east about 10 knots and had the bait pushed into a cove in the back bay. We had two keepers stripers and sixty eight shorts on that nasty cold October afternoon all on bucktails with pink twisters. You can catch fish on the first couple of days of north east wind but the longer it blows north east the worse the fishing will become.
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