What’s Biting in April in New Jersey?
The River
The shad run is one of my non-negotiable, must-not-miss events of the springtime. Luckily for me, my friend Joe Cermele always saves me a seat in his drift boat for a float down the Delaware in April. While shad are always Plan A on these trips, plans B and C (for striped bass and catfish) can take a good shad day and turn it into one of the best fishing days of the entire season. That’s what happened back in 2023.
We started out shad fishing, which Joe does by anchoring up and setting out a four-rod spread of willow-leaf spoons. He uses small planer or crankbaits with the hooks removed to get the spoons down near the bottom where the shad will be swimming upriver. While Joe has a milk run of locations where he knows the shad are, day to day he has to fine-tune the boat’s position to account for changing river flows and the shads’ mood. For example, if the rods on the starboard side get all the bites, he’ll shimmy the boat to try and get all four spoons into the zone.
On that day, the shad fishing was steady, a bite every 5 to 10 minutes or so. Joe kept one of the shad and cut it into chunks for a quick pitstop over a deep hole that had a half-dozen big, hungry channel cats willing to eat our chunks.
As he rowed us toward the next shad spot, he dropped anchor near a mid-river current seam and broke out two rods rigged with Daiwa SP Minnows. A couple of casts in, a big striped bass blasted my plug and ran so far down stream, I thought it might reach the bay before slowing down. After that run, I turned its head into the current and made slow, but steady progress toward the anchored drift boat. We took a picture of the fish and quickly returned it to the river.
We closed out the day with a few more shad, and I had a chance to repay Joe for his deft work with the net on my big bass when he hooked into what he claims was a wall-hanger of a shad. We’ll never know though. In my attempt to extend the handle on the net, I extended it right into the taut line, knocking the hook out of the fish. He hasn’t let me forget it.
The Bays
In the salt, there’s a whole different mixed bag happening, with blackfish, blues, stripers, drum and, for the patient, some winter flounder.
Bluefish beeline for the inlets toward the end of this month. It may start with a trickle, a chomped soft plastic here and there, but by May, there should be good fishing happening in some of the bays.
In 2023, blues made reliable rounds over Barnegat Bay mudflats, and pencil poppers or walk-the-dog topwaters got bites when they were active. Soft plastics or minnow plugs got bites when the fish were more skittish.
Raritan Bay will load up with stripers this month with fish from 30 to 50 inches looking to chow down before running up the Hudson River. Action should be good for shore and boat fishermen alike, catching them on swim shads, flutter spoons, minnow plugs, and even topwaters. At times, nearly all the fish will be too large to keep, so be prepared to release them in good condition. From shore, nighttime hours are best, but from the boat or kayak, the action can go all day.
On the Delaware Bay, some black drum begin moving in for their annual spawn, and anglers soaking clams in the sloughs will catch the first few (usually smaller) fish of the season. Over the last few years, anglers have been running into drum in other bays and in the surf (on fresh clams), providing even more variety during April.
Springtime Tautog
Anglers hankering for their first self-caught, fresh seafood dinner of the season can easily check that off this month with the opening of the spring tog season. At the beginning of the month, the best shot at a keeper exists at the wrecks and reefs a few miles offshore, but before the season ends on April 30, jetty and pier fishermen should be in the game as well.
For shorebound blackfishing, it pays to spend an hour or so flipping rocks or walking mudflats to load up on bite-size Asian shore or fiddler crabs. Fish them whole on a simple one-hook rig, casting out to soft bottom and dragging the rig until you contact the edge of structure. You’ll have to weed through a healthy population of shorts before connecting with a keeper, but consider the thrown-back blackfish as valuable hook-setting practice for when the big one bites.
Related Content
Spring Striper Fishing on Raritan Bay
American Shad on the Delaware River
Black Drum Fishing in Delaware Bay
Source: https://onthewater.com/whats-biting-in-april-in-new-jersey
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