Headed out a bit late this morning to, once again, troll for the allusive bay blues. Went to the Gulf Point Bay, the area between Gulf Point and the Barnegat Condos. I started the troll in overcast weather with south winds at 10-15 and water temp at 64 degrees. I trolled Tony Accetta # 17 Pet spoons for 3 1/2 hours without a touch. I was marking bait and an occasional larger fish which was the first time in 4 other trips to see any marks at all! Because of the marks I decided to stick with it longer than I normally would have. It paid off! I boated 4 bluefish of the 5 hook-ups, all in the 4 to 5 lbs. range. It was way too windy to cast so I had to stay with the troll to catch, something I would rather not do. If history repeats itself, more and larger fish should follow and can be caught throughout Barnegat and Manahawkin Bays as the water warms.

Sunday I went fishing on the Carolyn Anne for Tog. A light crowd, nice weather and smooth seas made for a fine day. After witnessing a 9 lb and 8 lb Tog come aboard, I cast aside Bob Misak’s jigging advice and went with what most of the boat was using – clams on a single hook rig (crabs weren’t getting much love). Good action in the morning but the bite died after 11. Around twenty keepers were caught on the boat. Although I’m generally a pathetic Togger, I managed one. Only lost three rigs thanks to the mates helping me get unstuck!

It all started with a call from Caesar Friday night reporting that the perch were hitting in Mill Creek and did I want to fish. Saturday was out so we decided to meet on Sunday. My buddy and member Alan just came down for a few days so we all met at ~6:00 PM. To my surprise former member Walt from Surf City was there and shortly member Phil arrived. The perch were hungry and as promised I phoned Dave to let him get in on the action.
Talk about fun! Six seniors were acting like kids having a good time catching fish. We caught everything on live shrimp except for purist Dave who caught several large perch on lures. The photo shows the catch Alan and I caught and I’m sure everyone else had a bunch.

I made a trip to the Oyster Creek outflow hoping to pick up a few stripers. Mill creek was 45 degrees, the bay 42.5 and Oyster creek 53 when I arrived and 56 when I departed around 3pm. I marked very few fish and had a slow day as did the other two boats there. A couple fishing from the bank very near the RT 9 bridge however were catching fish on almost every cast. I wasn’t close enough to see if they were white perch or school stripers – hope they were perch because all of them ended up in a bucket. While fishing closer to the bay, I saw a splash out of corner of my eye and turned to see an airborne bunker flying for his life. As he hit the water, just ahead of huge moving hump of water, there was an explosion and he leapt straight up into the air only to come back down to the mouth of something real big. A second later the attacker stuck its head above the surface to finish inhaling the bunker. It was a seal! I’ve seen them in Great Bay and around Barnegat Inlet, but never on the west side of the bay. What a sight!!! Ended up catching a 15 and 20” striper with another memory of the saltwater jungle.

I noticed that the snook were taking small glass minnows at night under the green light at our condo fishing pier here in Florida. When I was shopping at Walmart I saw these small crappie jigs. First 2 casts last night produced 2 snook, 23 and 20 inches long, great fight on light tackle. Looks like I got a secret weapon. These small jigs might work for weaks or bass in Manahawkin under the bridge at night.

Jim Hutchinson Sr and his wife spend the winter down in Pine Island Florida near Ft Myers. On a recent trip, they caught a lot of smaller fish along with two nice keepers – a sheepshead and a black drum. That’s some great eating!

On February 6, Ed Valitutto, who was spending a few months in Cape Coral, joined me in Sarasota for some fishing. We departed the dock at 9AM and headed out to the North Bay. A NE breeze took care of the early morning fog and there was no boat traffic on the way out. We arrived at our spot near the Ringling flats and began casting our jigs. Earlier this year I was catching seatrout on 4 and 6 inch paddle tail soft plastics on 1/8 – 1/4 ounce jigs fished fast but with the recent cold fronts coming through the fish stopped biting. I had been experimenting with Gulp and found that a 3 inch pearl white shrimp fished on the bottom coaxed the cold trout into biting.

Our first spot was a bust but on the second stop I started to bail the trout on my pearl white shrimp. Ed quickly changed over and we began catching fish on almost every cast. We were joined by a couple other boats. Ed and I frustrated these guys by out fishing them with our Gulp. We must have caught over 50 fish and ended up with 6, nice size keepers. At one point I had a big fish take me all around the boat before my tippet gave way, but what would a day be without the “big one” getting away. Other highlights included a cormorant who caught and swallowed two released trout and a dolphin who wanted to do the same and forced us to move a bit. We motored back to the dock, cleaned fish and made plans for another trip.

My neighbor had a reservation on the Osprey out of AC for tog fishing on Sunday 17 December. He couldn’t make it and offered it to me gratis for a past favor. This is a fantastic boat that winters down in Atlantic City and fishes through January. The boat supplies all hooks and lead regardless of how many times you hang up – I lost at least 6-8 sinkers! The weather was fantastic but unfortunately the fish on all the wrecks we tried were not on the feed. I had one keeper at 3.5 lbs
Happy Holidays to everyone!
Ed

I fished solo and cleared BI at 7:15 and went straight out and slightly south. Picked up my first trolling fish of the year, I REALLY SUCK AT TROLLING, a 27 1/2″ bonus fish on white mojo’s. Had a hit on a Stretch 25, but lost it, SO WHAT IS NEW! The bite and marks seemed to stop around 9 so I ran, then trolled, then ran and then trolled south and finally found birds working off of the red tower off of Holgate and picked up a 31″ on the white mojo’s and 3 more casting shads. During the day marked lots of fish, but they just were not in the eating mood, but managed to boat 5 and kept 2 for my last trip of the year. Had to circumnavigate LBI to do it, but still great fun! There is a monster dredging platform blocking the north entrance of LE inlet that has to be navigated around. If anyone still has their boat in the water, the ocean off of Holgate seems to be the best area for stripers at this time.
Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and Happy New Year!

I started the day planning on taking my boat out but a call from Alan Goracy regarding West winds and 2 ft. waves changed my mind. We left around 10:00 and were out the inlet by 11:00. We headed out 2-2.5 miles and dropped the first troll line in (white Maja spoon) but the strong west wind made for very difficult fishing. Making things worse was the 2 inch packed snow we had to walk on. I then headed in towards shore and trolled north in 30-40 ft.
Alan changed to a smaller Maja and I attached a 30+ Stretch Manns plug. There were numerous bait, small fish and larger fish returns on my sonar but no takers. Near the first bathing beach around 1:00, I had a fish on the plug. Alan brought every striper lure he owned but forgot his Manns plug so he changed to a shad umbrella rig. Around 2:00, a second fish hit the Manns. At 2:30, we were cold and headed home. Fish were small: one 28″ @8 lbs and the other 30″ @10 lbs. Great end of season trip!

I left the dock at 8:30 A. M. and headed to the Sarasota North Bay about 5 miles away. When I got to my spot at 3 foot depth near a grass flat, I grabbed my spinning rod and was shocked to see what I thought was a huge brown boulder in the water next to the boat. My first thought was that I was going to damage my motor but then I realized that this was a huge manatee. He lingered for a while then gently paddled away.
I baited a 1/8 oz. green jig with chartreuse 4 inch Gulp swimming minnow. The spotted sea trout pounded the bait for the next hour until I used up the entire pack of Gulp. I kept 7 large trout.
I motored over to long bar, a 4 mile long sand bar in the middle of the bay. I caught several more large trout as I drifted parallel to the bar in 3 feet of water. I returned home at 12:30 P. M. Tomorrow I will depart at 7:30 A. M. so that I have longer fishing time before the action stops.

The fishing alien and his grandson, Mike, left the dock at 5am and broke the BI at 6:05 on 11/23/17 and headed north looking for bunker. We went all the way to Lavallette without finding any. Headed back south and found a few bunker pods along with a couple of whales about 3/4 mi off of the IBSP and Seaside border. Put 1/2 dozen in the live well and on the next snag let it drop – only took 3 or 4 minutes and the rod went down resulting in a fat 40” bass that was released to fight another day. And that was it!!! Saw a few boated, but not many. What happened to all of the bunker that were around last week? Sure hope they return as I’m not into trolling even though those trolling today seemed to be doing well. Hope to get out a few more times this year.

On 11/18/17 Ray and I departed Siesta Harbor at 7:45 A. M. with calm wind conditions. We arrived at a reef about 10 miles off shore in the Gulf and began drifting jigs. I got 2 strikes and had my jigs cut off twice. At that point we knew the King Mackerel were there. We decided to drift Sabiki rigs for bait and started loading up with cigar minnows, pin fish and blue runners. A boat that was anchored near us landed a King on live bait. Once the live well was filled, we anchored directly over the main structure. We started live lining bait fish and landed a nice King. I started to fish the bottom with live pin fish and caught a couple short grouper. The action slowed so I put on a piece of cut bait and put it on the bottom. I had an instant pick up and thought I was in the structure but then the fish started to move and dig toward the bottom. The fish was enormous and, after a few minutes of bending my rod to the breaking point, my 50 pound braided line broke. My guess was a Goliath Grouper.

After a slow period while some late arriving boats drifted by us, Ray landed a nice jack. Then, I hooked up with a large King that took long runs stripping line off my screaming conventional reel. As we brought the King closer to the boat a Goliath Grouper rose up from the bottom to survey the action. I was afraid I would lose the fish to the Goliath so I worked hard to bring the fish to the gaff. Ray gaffed the fish and I silenced it with my Bluefish Billy Club. We took a needed rest and had lunch as a boat anchored near us. There was a bunch of young guys on the boat and they had a heavy rod with a Penn International reel. They put out a King Mackerel they had caught earlier as bait. Before we finished our lunch, they were hooked up with a large Bull Shark. They fought the fish for some time and then screamed that a Goliath Grouper rose up near the shark. They finally landed and tailed the shark and one by one they jumped into the water to have their pictures taken alongside the shark. We departed for home at 12:30 after an exciting day of some unique experiences.

I had a beautiful day on the ocean with fishing bud Wil catching a real mixed bag. We caught our 2 tog on a wreck and then went to the LE Reef. We caught sea bass, porgies, a trigger fish, a blow fish, blue fish, and a short weakfish. There were also many shorts released. Great day!

Another beautiful day on the bay – water temp at 68 degrees, light wind and bait all over the place – a great day to go fishing. Went to the Ship Bottom bridge to try and catch some small stripers and bluefish. Picked up the first blue casting into a pod of bait being attacked and the other 6, all about the same size, casting up current under and around the bridge. On a long drift North of the bridge I caught the 21″ fluke – what a surprise!

It was a beautiful day today so I went out to my favorite spot and was lucky enough to catch three weakfish, three runt sea bass and a baby fluke. All of the weakies were about the same size and the one deep hooked was the one I kept – 21″ and 4 1/2 lbs, All on artificials!

September 4th was the last fishable day of the fluke season in the ocean. With three friends on board, we had a good day of fishing with many throwbacks and seven keepers. I had my 3 fish limit with the largest 22 inches. We also had a  5 lb 24 inch and pictured is my friend Bob with his 6 lb 26 inch fish. If you look closely at the bottom right of the picture, there’s a fluke with a white face and dark on both sides. My friend Will caught him and caught another one just like it on a previous trip shown on an earlier report. The ducks also enjoyed the motor flush!

With the favorable marine forecast of 2 ft or less seas, I wanted to fish the Barnegat Light Reef and locate and chart some nearby wrecks. So much for a plan! The seas were 3-5 ft and miserable to fish in. Why I ignored my inclination to turn back when I saw the very sloppy inlet escapes me. After the thrills of the inlet and a fast idle to the reef, I started to fluke fish. In an hour and a half of rocking and rolling and rocking and rolling I had caught 3 shorts and a couple robins when I got a solid hit on the 6” white Gulp grub. What a fight! The 7 ft stout rod was bent deep into the butt and the tight drag was giving up short bursts of line. Holy Cow! It was a big fluke that hit my teaser. With great luck, I was able to scoop it into the net on first try. WOW! A slow trip back to the inlet and an easy ride to the dock, put me there around noon. A quick trip to the Beach Haven Bait & Tackle scale put numbers to what I already knew was the biggest fluke of my life – 6lbs, 14ozs! Sure glad I toughed out the rough seas!