The hot striper bite continued today at the mouth of Raritan Bay. There wasn't much going on when I joined Chuck Many of Annandale at 10 a.m. on his Ty Man from Gateway Marina in Highlands along with Dave Donahue from Readington and Bryan Pieros. Many got off by himself and found some birds and breaking fish that we worked on for awhile with light spinning tackle and 5-inch Tsunami Shads. They ranged from small up to 28 1/2 inches, bur when Many got the word that the bite had turned on at the mouth of the bay he ran down there to get into heavy marks. It was a wild scene with the fleet jammed into a small area and fighting both the northeast wind and strong current. It wasn't easy to fight fish while always being ready to grab on as the next party boat wake hit, but the bite was steady for a variety of sizes up to 33 inches. We caught plenty of keepers, but never hooked a really big bass while fishing the Tsunami Deep Shads in order to get down in 50 feet. Many eventually left those fish biting to fish calmer waters. I released a couple of keeper bass in the East River on eels, but that bite wasn't turned on. A quick stop on a reading in the bay on the way back produced the 40th bass of the day just as the rain started getting serious. The water temperature at the mouth of the bay was down to 60.7 degrees, but about a degree higher in the East River. The Sea Hunter and Fishermen from Atlantic Highlands both reported the same great bite on the change of tide, with keepers for all plus releases and some slots along with shorts -- but no blues to cut off shad tails. At Belmar, the Golden Eagle had planned to head offshore for jumbo blues first, but it was too nasty -- so they switched to stripers. That worked out as they found breaking bass that were hard to catch. They did catch some that were all keepers up to a 39-pounder. I fished the Sea Girt surf early in rough conditions but clean water. I had lost two small bass there the previous morning, but didn't get a hit in the 15 minutes before the NE wind made it tough to work a light lure. I found out that fly rod pro Bill Massey of Wall caught a bass on a Clouser.