by Capt. Dave De Gennaro has had a long love affair with Barnegat Ridge, which is a short trip offshore for his Hi Flier from Barnegat and usually produces something worthwhile ranging from fluke to school bluefin tuna. I haven’t heard of any school tuna that close so far, but all the other inshore pelagics are showing up.
Dave has been concentrating on trolling small lures for bonito up to 6 pounds and Spanish mackerel from 18-24 inches. There are also some little tunny from small to large — and an occasional king mackerel or chicken dolphin. Most surprising was the skinny houndfish that attacked a trolled cedar plug.
On days when it’s too rough to get out to the Ridge, there’s been action with sharks on heavy spinning tackle. These include spinners, blackfins, Atlantic sharpnose and sometimes a dusky for catch and release sport. There’s also been some weakfish in the day along with fluke and blowfish, though most weaks are still small.
Hi Flier is running open on the weekend for either bluefin tuna further offshore or out to the Ridge. Give Dave a call at 732 330-5674 for info on sailing times and rates which vary with the length of the trip.
Bluefish jigging held up today for the Golden Eagle from Belmar. They also had some Spanish mackerel and fluke.
That wasn’t the case in Shark River where I only saw one blue caught on a popper this morning in good conditions. Even fly fishing pro Joe Blaze couldn’t hook up with anything.
Tank Matraxia of Lyndhurst is vacationing in Nantucket where he took a five-hour trip on a party boat to catch bonito and small blues casting plus fluke and sea bass on bottom.
It’s all coming down to the last day at The MidAtlantic. Boats are weighing in as this is being written, and I’ll have a late blog after the scales close at 9 p.m. Everything will then be decided tomorrow. After yesterday’s breakthroughs, there are now some very hard to beat fish on the board — especially the 207-and-226-pound bigeye tuna by Stalker. Uno Mas got up to a 71-pound white marlin which has some chance of standing up. To top it off, Uno Mas added 10 white marlin releases yesterday and is also way ahead in both white marlin points and overall points.
The inshore forecast for the morning is northwest at 10-15 knots with gusts to 20.
Tank Matraxia
Tight Lines 
The Shrewsbury and navesink rivers are loaded with tons of bait and a lot of Snapper Blues. There’s also some very good crabbing up the rivers for large BlueClaws. There is also an abundance of blowfish in the river system. But if you really want some action put your time in around the bridges there is some keeper stripers there for those who want to drown some worms fluking has been off from last year’s Pace a bit still a lot of shorts vs. Keepers in the base system. And the first good-sized porgies are beginning to be caught. So things are starting to look a little more fall like it’s going to take some time to water temperatures are still very warm
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Thanks for the info. Save a few for me.
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