It was just a start, but a huge improvement over the first trip on Friday, as the Golden Eagle from Belmar picked some mackerel and herring while searching from Scotland to 17 Fathoms. Capt. Jimmy Elliott said anglers working hard at the gigging managed about a dozen mackerel and about as many herring.

There was virtually no run of big stripers pushing bunkers to the beach in the spring, and boaters on the ocean were generally very disappointed with striper fishing under bunker schools. There was nothing like the fishing I experienced during Christmas Week two years ago when Capt. Joe Massa ran his My Three Sons from Morgan Marina to Shrewsbury Rocks where jigs dropped under working birds by my son Mike and Bob Correll of Bay Head produced doubleheaders of cod before we added stripers and blues -- and saw a bluefin tuna jump by the inner buoy.

Capt. Scotty Hilliard said he was all alone in the ocean today with his Prowler V from Atlantic Highlands, but blackfishing was good in 70 feet with the northwest wind. Hilliard has a Christmas morning trip from 7 30 a. m. to 1 30 p. m.

The Big Mohawk from Belmar reported good fishing Saturday, with tog up to 9 1 2 pounds. The Dauntless from Point Pleasant reports a mix of ling, tog and a few cod on daily bottom fishing trips.

For throwing heavy pencil poppers to large stripers in the spring, I change the reel over to a 9-foot, one-piece Seeker rod. The one rod I use for almost everything while boat fishing is the Tsunami LSW706C, a 7-foot, extra-heavy model that I can cast with light sinkers and jigs -- or with adult bunkers and sinkers heavy enough to hold in Ambrose Channel.