Free Bait On The Beach Gnome What I Mean

There is a lot of peanut bunker are being pushed up close to the shore, and washing up on the beach. They are also easy to cast net or snag. No idea what is pushing them in so close. Dolphin, skate, shark, flounder, cobia, bluefish, or Spanish mackerel. It could be everything out there is pushing the bunker. They could even be just crowding themselves onto the beach, just from sheer number. That happens too school of fish get spooked and just move to shallow water so fast the inner edge gets pushed onto the beach. Free Bunker!!!

You can use peanut bunker for bait. Many anglers will remove the guts of peanut bunker to get rid of an organ that puts off a signal that warns schooling fish of predators. Over the years anglers noticed when you gutted the peanut bunker they had more hookups. It is a valid theory. In the Bio lab back in college we would pour water from the shark tank into the feeder fish tank. All of the fish would jump out of the opposite end of the tank at once.

We may or may not have initiated new lab techs by showing them this neat trick to feed the sharks.
Us … “Stand there and hold this bucket we have to catch fish to feed the sharks” …
Them … “How do you catch the fish with a bucket?” …
Us Trying To Keep A Straight Face … “Hold on a second let me grab this cup of water”
Also Us … “Ready, now hold onto that bucket that is important?”
Them ..”Yeah but how is this going to catch fish, I mean what is a cup of water going to do?.”
They never see it coming …
At this point during his last question, you are pouring the water into the oppostie end of the tank they are standing near. In a split second, several hundred fish are moving in tandem towards this poor kid. Through the air. That bucket will not hold all of those fish, it never does. The smell of the predator in the water triggers the fish to move away immediately. The site of the new tech running and screaming has us on the floor. Then we pick up the fish and it is feeding time. We may have gotten yelled at a lot in the labs.

So clean or don’t clean your peanut bunker, that is a preference. Either way there is free bait washing up on many beaches. Take advantage of that, because whatever is pushing them, be it predatory or not, something out there is eating them. Put a hook in it and throw it back it out. If you are going to use the peanuts for bait, ice them or they will get mushy fast and not stay on a hook long. A predator will tear them off a hook easily too, be ready for a strike.

Predators will follow, swim under, or along schools of bunker all day long at times. If the food is on the move you may as well tag along until you need another meal. This is why some anglers snag and drop bunker, anything following the school will usually hit the snagged, dropped bunker. In Delaware you cannot snag and drop, it has to do with the treble hook I am told. We snag a bunker, reel it in, and then put a single hook in the fish and cast back out.

Fish On!
Rich King