First the mullet, then the menhaden, now bring on the lances!
It’s still dark in the gray light, pre-dawn, a good 45 minutes or so until the sun first pokes above the horizon. I know my timing is right, but ambling over the dunes I can already see the picket fence of casters lined up along the water’s edge, some at the end of their night-creeping excursions which started hours earlier, others newer arrivals waiting for the wake-up call at first light.
The sand eel is also known as the sand lance, a name which no doubt derives from the small baitfish’s defense tactic of “lancing” itself, face-first into the sand, an escape mechanism. These baits travel in schools and typically burrow into the sandy stretches of bottom at night, first poking out of their holes at sunrise to begin their feed.
That fact isn’t lost on striped bass; the early bird gets the worm, or in this case the eel.
Scientific Matters
Sand eels prefer sand or gravelly substrates where they can burrow for protection, predominantly in shallow coastal waters from the surf out to depths of around 300 feet. Going through various research papers, the sand lance can be found on both the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of the United States, and in marine waters around the globe. It’s a critically important forage fish for a variety of larger predators including whales, tuna, summer flounder and striped bass; when sand eels are prevalent, those predators stay well-fed. Ask any tuna hunter why they’re armed to the hilt with slender jigs throughout the summer months.
And in terms of whether or not sand eels themselves are more abundant from one season to the next, it would appear that their primary foodstuff plays a key factor. A National Marine Fisheries Service survey of sand lance abundance from the late 1960s through 2014 found great abundance in the late 1970s and into the ‘80s, a drop-off in the 1990s, and some resurgence of sand lance in the mid-2000s.
Posted at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute 4 years ago, researchers found that the sand eel’s primary food source, the copepod (calanus finarchicus), is a significant reason for sand eel abundance. “Essentially, if there is plenty of fatty food for sand lance to eat, there will be more, or higher quality, spawning in the fall, and more sand lance in the following years,” noted Evan Lubofsky at Woods Hole.
Additionally researchers believe winter water temperature also play a big role in sand eel abundance in Northeast waters. “During the late fall and winter, the adult sand lance have the lowest reserves of fat and the warmer water increases their metabolism at a time when there is little high-quality food around, making it difficult to survive,” Lubofsky added. That scientific observation coincides with a very special seasonal tradition for surfcasters in particular, the fall run of striped bass and when we often see those waves of sand eels, awakening at sunrise in the surf line.
Tins & Teasers
Depending on the year, we could see epic sand eel “blitzes” along the Striper Coast, or just a smattering of localized feeds. I lived in NYC for a number of years and spent a good amount of my fall fishing the South Shore Long Island beaches around Deb’s Inlet. Because the area around Atlantic Beach was new to me, I started keeping a simple logbook to help in plotting out subsequent seasons. In an entry on November 3, 2013, there was a bit of a heave at sunrise and my notes say I hadn’t done anything in the first couple of hours. Then I bumped into another surfcaster in the jetty pocket who said he had a few fish on the teaser.
“Pulled a tail from a Hopkins, tied a dropper in my leader and tossed A27 out deep and retrieved steady,” I noted in the log, taking a school fish on second cast. “Switched to Deadly Dick and found another,” I had entered into my log, registering eight more fish in a short period of time. “Could’ve caught dozens of fish if I had lighter tackle,” I had noted. Several days later my log showed I found birds working on the beach. “Had first fish within six casts using metal w/green tail, slow retrieve with teaser (casting at breaking fish),” the entry read, noting “Hooked up with three quick fish [with] bass moving in and out on sand eels.”
“Tins and teasers”, that has become a mantra of mine when stripers are on the sand eels in the wash. Sometimes a squabble of gulls will be the indicator of stripers on sand eels, while other times it’s the more subtle presence of loons swimming about. One thing I’d note with slender metals like Deadly Dicks or the Tsunami Slim Waves, and that’s swapping out the split rings and tiny treble hooks. While these particular metals do well “out of the box” on albies, Spanish mackerel and bonito, they won’t last, bass after bass. I’ve taken to using single hooks specifically for these thin metals I use when targeting stripers; any of the epoxy style jigs, the Game On Exo jigs are great too. I find a teaser to be the most critical element, with the main jig or metal often the deployment mechanism for getting the teaser into the mix.
Ava jigs with varied color tails (green, yellow, white, black) are also great casting options as your primary lure behind a sand eel fly. For prospecting purposes, or when the bite is a little bit out beyond the bar, I’ve grabbed other diamond jigs with bare hooks out my bins, and have added small imitation eels like Felmlee 3-1/2-inchers, or unrigged Hogy sand eels. In this situation you can cast a mile, and rather than a relatively slow retrieve I’ve taken to actually dragging that rig painstakingly slow through the sand, stopping along the way to allow that fake sand eel to wobble on its own. I can only assume that it appears to be a sand eel attempting to “lance” itself into the bottom, but either that or the teaser itself will often get a hit.
A Soft Approach
The benefit of using metals is assuredly the castability; you can cover a lot more water and blind cast your way into plenty of action once you find where the stripers have set up on a school of sand eels. That said, when the Tsunami Holographic Weighted Sand Eels hit the market, I think the most realistic sand eel imitation (outside of the custom fly world) to ever hit the beach had arrived. The first time using these “match the hatch” baits was by boat on a lump just off Long Beach Island in Central New Jersey, the season they first came out; the screen was lit up with stripers and dropping these Tsunami Holographic Weighted Sand Eels to the bottom and taking two cranks on the reel handle was simply bass madness.
Tsunami used to offer unrigged holographic sand eels which I used as previously referenced with diamond jigs and bare hooks; but by beach, the weighted and rigged versions are a terrific sand eel match, especially when the morning wakeup call is in tight. The 6-inch Tsunami Holographic Weighted Sand Eel comes in at 7/8 ounces in weight, followed by the 7-inch (1.25 ounce), 8-inch (1.78 ounce) and 9-inch (2.25 ounce). If you want to keep your teaser perfectly matched to your primary offering look for Tsunami’s 4-inch holographic rigged teaser weighing in at roughly a quarter-ounce.
Other soft plastic offerings for matching the hatch include Savage Gear Sandeel which starts in 1-1/2-ounce sizes, the 6-inch JoeBaggs Mini Sandeels with jigheads running from a half-ounce to 1-ounce, and also the Bill Hurley Custom Sand Eel jigheads from half-ounce to a whopping 4 ounces which you’ll want to use in conjunction with the Hurley Cape Cod Sand Eels. I’ve also had success by beach and by boat using the FishLab Mad Eel Soft Swimbaits (sand eel color) which are available in sizes from 5 to 8 inches.
Plug wise, you also have the Super Strike Super-N-Fish Needlefish running from 1-ounce and 5-1/4 inches up to a 3-ounce heavy that tapes out a 7-1/4 inches. Other options include the Gibbs Needlefish or any of the plethora of custom needles being made today. Just keep in mind that with your primary offering, when stripers are on the sand eel feed, tying off a simple dropper loop in your leader, several inches above your main lure, for your teaser is often your best bet for success.
Whatever weaponry you attach to the business end, you’ll want to go lighter with your rod and reel than your typical fall plugging setup, and your retrieve may vary. Slow and steady often wins the race, but when stripers are rooting around in the sand, trying to push a few sand eels free, that’s when I’ll sometimes slow my retrieve even more to the occasional stops and twitches. In other situations when gulls are wheeling and diving over feeding fish, you may find yourself needing to pick up the pace, or other types imparting the occasional jig and twitch.
I know plenty of surfcasters who scoff at the sand eel bite, essentially because they’ve been busting their hump through the solitary overnight hours, plugging away at a few quality bass in the dark while the rest of us are home in the rack getting 6 hours with head on the pillow. At first light, we suddenly show up in the surf, lined up in a picket fence, hitting fish after fish.
The life of a dedicated, hardcore surfcaster is sometimes not fair. But you take what the good lord gives you; and when it comes to a late fall sand eel bite, you lighten up and count your blessings.
