Another Good Day at BL Reef by Ed Valitutto

Posted on August 27, 2018 by VHFC

Once again, with good seas forecasted, Alan Goracy and I made another trip to the BL reef on Monday 8/27. And once again, he out fished me. Alan had three fluke and a Spanish Mackerel (we think) and I had one fluke. Sizes were decent 19, 20, 20 1/2 & 22 but certainly not FOM contenders.

We only caught maybe 15 shorts so the short to keeper ratio was low. The absolute killer rig was Alan’s chrome fluke ball with a Gulp nuclear chicken. That combo accounted for most of the shorts and his keepers. I caught my fluke on a teaser with a live peanut bunker I cast netted on the morning trip out of the lagoon. The drift started ok at .8 kts but later dropped to .5 kts. Since Alan had to return to his land house up in Hunterdon County and with slower drift conditions, we left the reef at 12:30 for the drive back to my dock.

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Fishing Facts

Of the fifty United States, thirty-eight have a striped-bass record. New Jersey has the largest striped-bass record—a 78-pound 8·ounce whopper that was caught in 1982. The state with the smallest striped-bass record is Iowa. That landlocked striper weighed only 9 pounds 4 ounces and was caught in 1983.

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