Great Seabass Opening Day by Ed Valitutto

Posted on October 8, 2021 by VHFC

Opening day for seabass was October 8th and everything aligned perfectly! Weather was beautiful, winds were light out of the west and waves were 2 feet or less. Bill Dabney joined me for a trip to the Garden State North reef for the day.
Let me say upfront, I have never done this before on my boat. My new trolling motor performed flawlessly but that’s only part of the equation. You have to find the wreck (coordinates aren’t always 100%) and you have to get positioned over it. I definitely need more practice!
We started out real hot having 9 decent keepers by 9:00 but then we hit a dry spell. We ended the day with 13 keepers, many throwbacks and even one fluke! As an added attraction, we saw a huge mola mola (ocean sunfish) alongside my boat.
Overall, it was a wonderful start to the season!

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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.

There’s something fishy about beer these days. Fish Tail Ale is popular as ever, and New Jersey’s Flying Fish Brewery is one of the state’s largest specialty breweries. There’s also Washington’s Wild Salmon Organic Pale Ale, Florida’s Land Shark beer, Delaware’s Dogfish Head beer, and two versions of Stingray beer—a lighter version from the Cayman Islands and a dark beer from Canada.

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