It had been a rough fall. Too many days of big surf and strong winds were preventing us from getting on the ocean for the fall run. We got a report for Monday of light winds and surf under one foot. It was like all the planets were aligned. It was highly unusual conditions for the Northeast in late fall. After all Thanksgiving was in the rear view mirror already and winter was just around the corner. We were hoping to hit Montauk one last time and get on the water for the herring run. When the bass are on herring they’re big and aggressive. However as I left my house at 3AM for the 3 hour drive my cell phone rang. It was Joey. He’d been up since 2 and was checking reports and they weren’t good. The charter boat captains thought the run was over. There were still plenty of herring but no bass and they could cover a lot more water then we could. So we decided to give Jersey a shot. I called Paul and filled him in.  We got to the beach predawn and waited for the sun to see if there was any bird activity. Danny and someone else were already on the water trolling. It was cold. Overnight lows were in the low 30s and even upper 20s at night and things weren’t going to warm up ‘til the sun showed up. So we decided we’d wait and see if there was any activity. Nothing materialized so we headed up to Sandy Hook where we found some birds working a couple miles out and a bunch of boats there. We launched at Fisherman’s Beach and started working our way out but by then action had dissipated so we trolled north towards the tip of the hook. Joey worked closest to shore, Paul in the middle and I took the furthest out. Some birds were working near the channel and Joey was in them so I headed over. Paul didn’t get there. Turns out a nice bass interrupted his troll by taking his TnW with a big Gulp sandworm. It was his biggest striper so far and a good way for him to initiate his first day ever kayak fishing the ocean. It turned out to be the only fish caught.