My grandson Nick came down for the Marine Science camp next week (his 4th year) and brought along a friend Tommy for his first time. They wanted to fish and much as I was tempted, I didn’t want to go to a reef with just the three of us. Since Tommy has never fished before, I decided to fish the ICW at the lower end of Holgate.

Within 10 minutes of our first drift, Nick had a keeper and Tommy had a nice throw back. We fished for barely an hour and a half until the green heads were unbearable and the drift & fishing went sour. But we caught 6 fluke including three keepers at 18, 19 & 20 inches. Best if all, we were back the dock by 10:15. Needless to say, Tommy now is a diehard fisherman!

With my grandson down for the week and the fluke fishing being short on keepers, we decided to try for blowfish. Andy Tonneson suggested anywhere near the Rutgers buoy just north of the BI buoy. We started with a fluke drift but the crabs were voracious. I managed a 15 inch fluke but you could not keep a Gulp on the hook without having the tail removed by a chisel bite!

We anchored up, set out the chum log and within 10 minutes the action was non-stop. Well it was non-stop for Nick. All I could manage was to lose my bait on both hooks within seconds of hitting bottom. I finally figured that Nick was positioned further away from the chum pot and got first dibs at the fish. His rod was also lighter and more sensitive to the bite. Reluctantly he agreed to switch rods and positions. He continued to catch them on my rod in my spot while I continued losing bait after bait!

After 2 1/2 hrs of action, we agreed to save the third chum log and second container of clams for another day. Final count was 60 puffers with Nick probably catching 50 of them including 6 double headers!

Bob Dodds and I started out on my boat the Bay Fillet at the Dike near High Bar to fish the beginning of the outgoing where we found some shorts and a lot of greenheads. Bob and I and the greenheads then headed out to the Tires where at 0.5 knots or less the fish nibbled at our bait and the greenheads nibbled on my legs. (Bob was smart to wear long pants!) We managed a bunch more shorts, some sea robins, and one keeper. Greenheads seemed happy with the trip but I nailed them with a can of raid when I got back. We actually had a good time – and I know the fishing will improve. Cooked up the fluke fillets in some pancake batter, with some steamed crabs as appetizer. On to August! (Pic by Bob)

VHFC member Alan Goracy, my grandson Nick and I went fishing on Monday 7/15 after hearing good reports from the Double Creek area. The weather was warm and the breeze was enough to keep the bugs away and still provide enough drift. After trying Double Creek and getting only shorts, we fished an unmarked cut that feeds in from the North side near the sand bar near High Bar channel. All totaled we had well over 30 fluke with Alan managing three keepers. Almost all were caught on killies since the blowfish quickly ate the tails off the Gulp!

Tough day today (July 9) trying to catch fluke. No grandkids today just several seniors trying to put something in the box. This has been a strange season – nothing on the drift except skates on bait. I had to bump the boat to get fluke to bite. Gulp was the preferred bait. We had half a dozen shorts and 3 keepers 1@ 18”, 1@22” and 1@ 24 1/2″. I weighed in the 24-1/2” @ FHQ and it went 4.34 lbs. We also had 2 nice sea bass and several big sea robins
All in all a good day!

I arrived at the Marshelder Channel around 7:00 am this morning in wind a lot stronger than forecasted – so what’s new! I started drifts across the channel due to the wind direction and used killies on my jig and teaser. Over the course of the next four hours I caught 5 shorts and killed what seemed like a thousand greenhead and small black flies. The tide changed from incoming to outgoing and with the use of my trolling motor was able to establish a drift on the edge of the channel of 1.2 mph and got a solid hit just east of the brick pile. I landed what turned out to be a  21 1/2″, 3.4 lb fluke. After a couple more fishless drifts, I called it a day  happy with my catch and delighted to leave the flies!

With lovely weather and favorable winds, my grandsons and I went out of Little Egg inlet and fished yesterday oceanside. We covered a lot of ground and only came up with 1-keeper fluke – a beauty at 23-1/2”. We also caught
2 ling and 3 small bluefish which were blitzing at the inlet. Hopefully the fluke bite will turn on soon.

The boys can never get enough fishing and went to the surf last night, They landed the ray shown and another shark.

The 2019 fluke season has been tough for me. I have gone numerous times with minimal shorts and only a few keepers. Today was a little better at least in terms of total fish count. Dave Spendiff, my grandson – Junior member Nick Rossi and I left my dock at 6:15 and headed South out of BHW. After a short drift in the middle grounds we headed to Marshelder Channel and stayed there until we departed back at 12:45. The total catch was 17 short fluke, one 18″ keeper, one 14″ weakfish and several birds, dogs and a skate. Great weather & great drifts made for a fine day on the water.

My two grandsons Tyler & Brendan are definitely hooked on surf fishing. They caught and released this beast last night.

Brendan Jelley caught this sand tiger fishing off the Surf in Holgate yesterday. Per grandfather Larry, “Confirms why I don’t swim in the Ocean.” That’s Brendan showing us the “jaws” of the beast before returning the fish back into the ocean.

I fished the sands today in Harvey Cedars and caught three Kingfish all on Fishbites. Lots of fun on light tackle and great eating too.

The ride out was not, but the fishing definitely was!!

Some of you know that my very healthy wife, Doris passed away in December of 2014 only 8 weeks after being diagnosed with stage IV gallbladder cancer. She was my surf fluke fishing & catching buddy. After her death, I backed off of fishing until this year. On 6/19, our 48th wedding anniversary, my son Shawn, son-in-law Eric & I went on a charter with captain Greg Carr on the Kev n’ Ash II.

Needless to say, the fog at 6am was bad. With Greg’s ability and electronics, we got out into the ocean. We tried a spot or two and after Greg’s repositioning, we started catching sea bass after sea bass. We let numerous legal fish go – see the photo of  me tossing one back to grow even bigger –  and kept our limit of sea bass from 13.5 – 23″. Unfortunately the 4.5 lb.+ was caught by Eric and was not entered into the FOM.

This trip was Doris’ gift to me with a promise that I would write this to give you guys a message: Spend as much time as you can with your spouse. Not only fishing, if you are lucky, but also other things as well. Like laundry, house cleaning, food shopping, ( I just can’t include clothes shopping) or just doing nothing together.
Do it today. You never know what can happen tomorrow.

Went south to Great Bay for some fluke fishing. We caught 8 shorts and had 2 keepers. My grandson Carter had a nice 20” fluke. Hopefully fishing will keep getting better!

Per granddad Larry, his grandsons went lake fishing off Route 72 to test their freshwater skills. The boys have caught and released several like the nice largemouth bass Tyler is holding.

As far as fluking, Larry said they have not put one keeper on the boat yet. If last year is any indicator, that will change soon!

Just when it looked like this year’s new Perch FOM category was going to lack an entry, Larry Leary notified me that his grandson VHFC Jr angler Tyler Leary caught this beauty last night in the lagoon behind his house. The perch weighed in at Creekside Outfitters went 1.37 lb! Nice work Tyler!

Bob Dodds, Phil Simon, Gene Geld and I signed up for the IFISSH bottom trip on the Voyager out of Point Pleasant for Sunday June 9th. This trip was run by Rutgers Doug Zemeckis who spoke at our April meeting. Despite a bad forecast of strong easterly winds and 4 – 6 ft. seas, the trip remained on schedule. For once, the weatherman erred to the high side. Seas were rough on the way out but once anchored, it was fine.

Unfortunately the black seabass weren’t on the feed; fortunately, the ling were voracious! I don’t know how many I caught, but between culling out the shorts and tossing some into the boat basket, I still had plenty to take home. The other VHFC anglers on the trip had similar results. I did have one decent seabass at 16+ inches. Not big enough to beat Carmine Tocci’s last weigh in of 2.6 lbs but good enough at 1.75 lbs to give me the temporary lead in the ELKS June contest.

Overall, we had a blast and will certainly look forward to next year’s trip. Ling are definitely not fighters but they are tasty when fried up golden!

The 2019 fluke season has been slow starting for me. VHFC member Bob Dodds joined me for a morning of fishing this past Tuesday. We started in Double Creek where several recent trips had yielded nothing but a few shorts. Despite a decent drift and ok water temperatures, not much was happening there. Bob suggested we fish High Bar Harbor, an area I had never ventured into before. The channel is well marked and the sand bars were very visible. After several drifts, we had 5 shorts and one keeper at 19.5 inches. Nothing to brag about but at least some action. We then tried fishing the dyke with one short and went up to the commercial fleet area to no avail. Strong afternoon winds was enough to start back home. BTW, Bob is looking for folks with a boat to fish and share expenses.

On Tuesday morning 5/28, my son-in-law Eric and I met Capt. Greg at 5:30 in Barnegat Light. Because of potential bad weather, we opted to fish in the inlet near the end of the north jetty for stripers and blues. The action was quick and we each got smaller stripers and several blues including one gator.
Since the storm was coming from Philly and still way off, we thought we had time for some trolling. We traveled north and tried but the storm was coming quicker than expected. We took in the lines and made it to the dock just as the rain came. Despite the ran, it was a fun day.

I fished on the Super Chic on the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend and like the boat’s name, both weather and fishing were absolutely super!
I caught close to 90 seabass and 6 ling. I kept the ling and my seabass limit. The rest went to the other anglers and the boat. My 3 largest seabass were 1.8, 2.4 and 2.8 lbs. Super day all around!