Member Drew Kraycirik wanted to fish on Thursday the 20th for Striped Bass. Unfortunately, he had no takers including Ed V who felt the prior evening’s club dinner would make it tough to rise and fish. Undaunted, Drew went by himself but quickly heard from other anglers that the bass were nowhere to be found. Another neighbor (Rig a Tony) traveled all the way to Lavalette and found only bait and a few birds.

Plan B was to fish for Tog at the tip of the north jetty – a tough task for one person operating the trolling motor and staying alert. Fortunately, the conditions were perfect, and no one was fishing there. Drew quickly put together a limit of Tog up to 18″. Another great day on the water!

I fished Little Egg Reef today for tog and was joined by Perry and Rick. We caught a lot of shorts and moved around quite a bit, but we finally caught our three keepers plus released 2 – and one was a Whopper! A 10.5 lb monster Tog that measured 25″ and is now my PB. It was truly a beautiful day!

We headed out for probably the last sea bass trip for the year this past Sunday.  We went 30 miles out and ended up with a total of 37 keepers.  The water temp was 52 degrees just outside the inlet but rose to 62 degrees out on the reef.  We used clam along with squid and had a lot of small seabass to weed through to find keepers.  It was non-stop action all day.

2Q

On Sunday, November 2nd, I took the long run out for Sea Bass, and they were definitely hungry! We caught our 3 man limit of Sea Bass, one Triggerfish and 3 Tog. We fished both jigs and bait but caught mostly doubles on the bait. It certainly ended up as a very good day on the water!

After the third cancellation of our Fall charters on the Mary M IV, I found I was suffering from a severe case of FDD (Fishing Deficit Disorder).  So I emailed a few of our club members asking if they knew of any boats going out to where the fish might be found since my boat is wrapped for the winter.  Bayside Dave clued me in to an open slot on Greg Carr’s boat Kev ‘N Ash (LBI charters) on Saturday 10/25 and so I signed on. 

Arriving at the dock at 15th St. in Barnegat Light at 6:45am, I was surprised to that our own Boston Bob was already on board.  Three additional anglers showed up for the trip, and off we went, with somewhat low expectations since it looked like the storms had pushed the fish out of reach.  Greg had planned to head out 20 miles, as the fishing closer in had been disappointing the last few days.  However, we stopped at a site about 7 miles out and the fish were there! Five hours and several stops later we had collected 52 Sea Bass and over 60 Scup (Porgy), plus a few straggler Blues and at least one Triggerfish.  The sea was somewhat sporty, so we did all our fishing from the sitting position for safety.  Everyone went home with a great haul of fish.  If you want to see more photos of the trip, go to Greg’s Facebook page at LBI Charters.

THE BAD, UGLY AND GOOD

The BAD is what we have all experienced this year with wind and waves causing many trip cancellations. With these, and some medical issues, I hadn’t fished since our fluke tournament on July 12^th.

The UGLY was the wave conditions on Friday 10/10 when waves were forecasted at 2 -3’ and we encountered 5 -6’.

The GOOD was when I finally got to fish on 10/6 & 10/10 with Captain Greg Carr on the Kev ‘n Ash. However, it took a couple of hours at the start of each trip to get good. The final result on 10/6, fishing with club members, Greg Camilleri, Boston Bob, and Bert Kern, plus friends Eugene & John was a boat limit of 70 sea bass. Of these, over a dozen were from 15 – 17”, plus 9 triggerfish.

I have to add a BANANA story to the dismay of Capt. Greg. On this trip, John pulled out a banana as we made our first stop. I can’t write what was said by Greg and others. However, Greg told John that he’ll pay for this, and he did with only catching 5 fish. Fortunately, I made up for lost time and was on fire catching 25 of our 70.

On 10/10, with club member, Bert Kern, plus Jack, Paul, Jim and John, we finished being just 7 shy of our limit.

Let’s hope for better conditions in 2026 for all of us.

I made the long run (23 miles) on Sunday October 26 Sea Bass and Tog. We caught our 4 man limit of nice Sea Bass up to 19″ along with Flounder, False Albacore & Triggerfish. We came in closer for Tog and had a lot of shorts and one keeper at 18″. What a great Trip!

Headed out for a tuna chunking trip with Bayside Dave, his buddy Jimmy and my friend Jon with Captain Isaac of B and Z Sportfishing. We left early at 2am for the long ride out. We had a quick hookup within the first 10 minutes of fishing but unfortunately lost the first fish. We had steady action most of the day with a final total of 6 fish landed and 7 lost due to line breaks. An awesome day on the water and looking forward to the next trip!

Neighbor Anthony and I went out on Friday on his boat Rig a Tony with a 3 – 5 forecast but improving conditions as the day went on. The inlet was very nasty with white water all over the seas. The trip to GSN wasn’t too bad but worth it. We were the only boat there and had our limit of Sea Bass and Anthony had a Triggerfish by 9:00. We then went back and tried drifting along the lower end of Oyster Creek with Spot. Wow! Almost every drift had a runoff or a fish. We boated 6 Stripers – all bonus tag fish 26 – 27″ and I had two Fluke – one was 22″ and one was considerably larger but escaped while I was trying for a picture. No problem!

We then went to the north jetty and eventually over to the bulkhead near Andy’s, where we boated several nice tog that were 13 – 14 3/4″ but just couldn’t get a keeper. Oh well – great day with 5 Species! Sorry about the pic. Found out today that the camera had a cracked lens,

Saturday August 30th, I set out with my crew of fishermen headed for the Garden State South Reef. It was a bit gnarly in the morning but finally laid down by late morning. We ended up with 2 23″ fish, one 22″, 5 over 20″ and 4 fish under 20″. Plus, we had 2 Sea Bass. Certainly, a good day of fishing with our four-man limit of flounder and two sea bass. Ended up a great day after a tough start!

All club members were fishing today – me, Brian, Sean, grandsons Brendan, Bryson and friend Jimbo. We ventured out early this morning to fluke fish some ocean wrecks, or so we thought. Instead, we were greeted by a very nasty ocean. We moved inshore and fished the Bone wreck for a short time and caught several throwback Tog and a few Triggerfish.

We then decided to move inside the inlet where the tide and current were good for a few hours. We kept 4 nice Fluke to 24-1/2”. As a special treat, we had some nice donuts from Ferrara’s Island bakery as shown in the picture. Once the boat traffic got out of control, it was time to come back to the dock. Still a nice day considering the conditions.
Happy Labor Day!!

On Sunday, August 17th, I joined John Stuebing on the Salty Dog for some wreck fishing for Fluke. Even though Hurrican Erin was not directly hitting our area, she was bringing significant waves from Monday evening through the week. So much so, that our club outing on the Mary M and our week long offshore tournament were both canceled. And who knows how long it will take after Erin passes us before our fishing returns to normal

Anyway, following the counterintuitive approach of finding a wreck, anchoring alongside it using your engines or a trolling motor and jigging straight up and down absolutely brought us great success – thank you, Greg Cudnik! John stopped at a small unknown wreck ~6-8 miles outside Little Egg Inlet and we caught fish. We had our limit by 9:00 with several nice keepers at 22″, 23″, 23.5″ and 24″.

Ed V’s Note: That’s our 2024 Melanie Boytos winner Tyler Leary with a magnificent Golden Tile. No, it doesn’t count for MBA points and there isn’t a FOM for it either. Tyler will just have to be content with the memory of such a phenomenal catch and some great eating!

My grandson, Tyler, and a friend ventured to the deep on Tuesday, August 12th to fish for Golden Tile. It was a very successful trip with this 42 lb Golden Tile and several others. Tyler certainly loves to fish!

On August 11th, I had a four man crew to go out and catch some Flounder. It was a slow start in the morning and I had to jump around a little bit.  But once we got going, we hammered them and had our limit by 1:30. The biggest Fluke was 4.5 lb.

John Stuebing , Pat Presutto and I went out on August 11 on the Salty Dog with two objectives: 1) Find Bunker and hopefully there will be a Cobia nearby and 2) Follow Greg Cudnik’s advice from last Friday’s meeting about using your trolling motor or engine to remain close to a wreck and slowly jig for Fluke.

John had some unknown wreck that was “Off the Red Tower” and we followed Greg’s instruction with great success. Now I will admit that hovering near a wreck with no drift is counterintuitive to everything I know about Fluke fishing – but it worked!! We did make some small moves but we were always near the wreck. Final count was 9 Fluke with several in the 21-23 range, 20+ shorts and several Sea Bass but I had the only keeper at 15 “

As far as the Cobia, we looked on the way out for bunker but found none. On the way in, we saw a slick and managed to snag a few but there were no takers. While looking at a popper lure’s action alongside the boat, a small 20 -25″ Cobia came up to the lure but did not take it. Oh well, still a great time on the water!

Brian, Tyler, Sean, Bryson, Tyler’s friend Josh and I left the dock at 6:15 heading North. We ended up with 11 nice keeper Fluke. Brian had a 24” Fluke and Grandson Bryson had a 22” fish.

In an addition, we had a lot of short fluke, one nice Seabass, one Bluefish (released), a Bonito and several unwanted skates! Great day and back to dock at 1:30!

My good friend Mike, joined me for a fishing trip on Saturday, August 9th for some non-stop fluke action on Barnegat Reef. We went to the club meeting on Friday night and Fish head Greg was great! Greg talked about using your electric motor around structure and it paid off big time for us.

We worked the electric motor around structure, and it was drop and reel fluke. I got a nice 23” and 22” on anchor – go figure! Greg sure knows his stuff!

Tyler & I left the dock @ 7AM and headed North on a beautiful ocean. We limited out with 6 nice Fluke to 21”. Both of us had a 21” fluke to log in. I also caught a 17” and a 16″ Seabass. We continued to fish and release several keeper Fluke. What an awesome day!

My Brother, Chris, and his son, Jake, came up from Virginia for a visit this week.  They had two objectives: 1) eat as much NJ Italian food and bakery pastries as possible; and 2) fish like crazy for our summer saltwater species.

We went out Monday and Tuesday focused mainly on the Barnegat Inlet and the Tires with plenty of action in both areas.  Based on some reliable intel (see member reports), we decided to cruise up to Seaside on Wednesday to fish for fluke.  Conditions were excellent for a couple hours until the wind came up and we could no longer hold bottom.  Fishing was fast and furious but all shorts until Chris and Jake hooked two keeper size fish simultaneously in a father/son double up.  Things got very hectic but fun while the net man (me) did his best to get both fish safely into the boat.

I think the guys had a great trip; I know I did.  Species caught were fluke, black seabass, bluefish (Jake), one Atlantic croaker (also Jake) and lots of pesky sea robins.  Thankfully, not a single spiny dogfish came up.  Results were tallied and Chris was the run-away winner of the high hook award proving to both his big brother and the young gun that he can still bring it.