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The captain’s computer is on the fritz. He will hopefully be back with you all tomorrow. Until then, good luck figuring out the finny creatures of the sea with pea sized brains!
The Captain’s Daughter
Page 206 of 289
Small blues cooperate again
Miss Belmar Princess reported having to work harder for them, but found 2-4-pound blues on top and worked hard to fool them with Ava 27 jigs as most fares had their five bluefish limits.
Capt. Ron Santee had to move around to scratch out fluke on his Fishermen from Atlantic Highlands, but Mike Lee proved that working hard can produce even when the bite isn’t on as he jigged all day to bag his limit. The pool fluke was 4 pounds.
Capt. Freddy Gamboa had another fine offshore trip with his Andrea’s Toy yesterday as he bent the rods quickly with bluefin tuna up to 55 inches, and then switched to tilefish as his party boxed two dozen ranging up to a 20-pounder.
The howling winds this afternoon should diminish overnight to southwest at 5-10 knots by morning. Once again there’s a chance of showers and thunder storms in the afternoon,
Raritan Bay doormat
The first doormat fluke reported to me from N.J. was caught today by Joe Jones of Allentown, Pa. in Raritan Bay, and it had plenty of room to spare at 12 pounds, 13 ounces. According to Kevin Kuriawa, Capt. Craig Kuminski was drifting in Raritan Bay with Vitamin Sea from Keyport when the slim 32-incher hit a jig tipped with Gulp that fell out of its mouth when it hit the deck in a striper net. Ironically, the same angler caught an 8-pounder when he chartered the boat last week,
Capt. Ron Santee said fluking was tough Thursday on his Fishermen from Atlantic Highlands when no wind resulted in little drift. Yet, Joe Ciervo of Middletown boated fluke of 5 1/2 and 4 pounds,
The best bet for the weekend may be the ocean fishing for small bluefish. Despite the poor shape of bluefish stocks, there’s been pretty consistent jigging action for 1-4-pounders which may have a few 5 to 6 pounders among them. Party boat anglers can keep five blues, and the action on jigs and teasers usually results in boat limits plus many releases. Bring reasonably light spinning tackle for the best results and most sport.
The Golden Eagle from Belmar reported having to go further and make lots of short moves in order to do well today with blues up to 5 pounds.
Dan Sheehan has been into 2-4-pound blues at Sea Bright, but notes it’s been ” Lots of casts for too few bites” in shallow morning waters.
Jim Hutchinson Sr. reports for the Beach Haven Charter Fishing Association that although the black sea bass season has closed for a period in New Jersey, there are plenty of other species to keep anglers happy. Fluke are plentiful in the bay waters and will be massing by the inlets in a matter of weeks to migrate into the ocean.
Captain Ray Lopez and mate Kieran Chenoweth-Hafner got into some bluefin tuna on a recent trip on the “Miss Liane.” They had Keith and his crew on an inshore bluefin trip. The group caught 8 bluefin to 40-inches. Kieran noted it was a beautiful day with wildlife around the boat.
There have been good bluefin trolling reports from the mid-range grounds, and the canyons have been hot for bigeyes and yellowfins.
The Mimi VI from Point Pleasant will be running open for bottom fishing on July 1 and 2. The fare is $90 and they sail at 6:30 a.m. Call 732 370-8010 for reservations.
Saturday’s forecast is for southwest winds at just 10 knots, but increasing to 15-20 plus gusts to 25 knots — and the possibility of showers and thunder storms.
Bigger blues show in ocean
Bluefish in the 6-8-pound class were reported among the abundant 2-5-pounders today by the Golden Eagle out of Belmar. Though a slow drift made it harder to fool them, there were many five-fish limits.
Capt. Dave Riback of the Queen Mary from Point Pl easant says some of his trips have been providing “old time” bluefish jigging with enough 5-pounders among them to provide several meals. He also saw his first bonito last week as they were jigging blues, but knows there were lots more as a gillnetter in the area caught 700 pounds.
The Jamaica from Brielle has switched to ling fishing which has been good. Frank Amaya of Mays Landing had a 24-inch cod to win yesterday’s pool, and a 23-incher won today for Greg Stewart from Sharon Hill, Virginia. Anglers can now board without reservations and pay on the boat.
Capt. Ron Santee Jr. had John Uhl of Plugbaits aboard his Fishermen from Atlantic Highlands yesterday as samples of the Gulp-like bait were passed out and produced good numbers of shoert and keeper fluke up to a 4-pound pool winner. The Tackle Box in Hazlet is handling that new product. Santee noted that he’s fishing in the ocean where medium action rods are required to handle 6-8-ounce sinkers.
Grumpy’s Tackle in Seaside Park reports bait has been the best bet in the surf. A 15-pound striper was weighed in today, and there was word of two bass over the 38-inch maximum being released. They also noted that rays have been spotted — so don’t walk away from rods being fished out of sand spikes!
Tomorrow’s forecast is for southwest winds at 5-10 knots before going south at 10-15 in the afternoon.
Bigeyes blast
Multiple canyon trolling catches of bigeye tuna have been almost common lately, but if recent seasoms are any guide they will become scarce come big money tournament time. Reports from the Canyon Runner out of Point Pleasant follow.:
Capt. Deane Lambros & Capt. Mike Zajac had a very busy past week getting in 4 overnighters with highlights on each trip. From dozens of big-eyes, to multiple 20 yellowfin/Big-eye trips, to perhaps the best hour of fishing in a decade.
Specific highlights included the Peter Wilcox charter with 3 nice big-eyes and 17 fat yellowfin, the Frank Tedesco charter with our biggest big-eye this year well over 200 pounds, the Jason Hutt family with 4 more big-eyes and a hold full of yellowfin and finally the Mike Davie charter just loading up with perhaps the best one hour of fishing in a decade – 3 passes over the edge in the first hour in the canyon and they had 7 big-eyes and 3 yellowfin – they finished up with 7 big-eyes, 13 big yellowfin and a big blue marlin.
But what’s really got us excited is when we look at our Canyon Runner Coaching and Fishing Report Member reports plus Deane’s and Mark DeCabia’s – they’ve accounted already for over 100 big-eyes this year.
And the fishing isn’t just in one spot – on one day a few days back between the Member’s and Mark and Deane we had big-eyes caught in Block, Dip, Babylon, Jones, Hendrickson, Spencer, Wilmington, Baltimore and Poormans Canyons. Just all out epic fishing!!!
The Golden Eagle from Belmar had a boat limit of 2-5-pound bluefish this morning and released many more on jigs. A few fluke were caught and sea bass released.
The report in last night’s blog about the Queen Mary’s bluefish and sea bass catches were actually from Monday’s fishing.
The first day of daily 6 a.m. fluke fishing on the Big Mohawk from Belmar produced some limits as those fishing with spinning tackle and Gulp badly outfished the bait draggers.
Tomorrow’s forecast is for west winds at 5 knots — shifting to the south in the afternoon.
Better fluking to north
Though today’s fluke fishing on the Fishermen from Atlantic Highlands wasn’t anything like the big fluke Bonanza that Dave Lilly had yesterday, it was a big improvement in party boat action during a season when three fish limits have been unusual.
Capt. Ron Santee reported a good bite of keepers and shorts that resulted in three limits being bagged and a 3 1/2-pound pool fluke.
The Queen Mary from Point Pleasant had a good bite of sea bass and bluefish early , but Capt. Dave Riback said “The rest of the day stunk”.
The Canyon Runner from Point Pleasant will be running a free canyon overnighter for the Military and First Responders from June 29-30. Those who qualify should call 732 272-4445 right away.
I’ll have more about the great tuna action the Canyon Runner has had in tomorrows blog, but I also talked to another angler who was frustrated yesterday on a day trip.
There were more whales than he’s ever seen in Lindenkohl Canyon, and lots of bait. Yet, they couldn’t troll a thing. After hearing there had been an early bite in Spencer Canyon, they moved there only to see the same signs and no hits while only one boat in the fleet was hooking up.
Striped bass from the surf big enough to weigh have been rare so far, but Betty and Nick’s in Seaside Park weighed a 23-pounder caught on clam this morning right from the local surf.
I tried casting a plug in the Bay Head surf after dawn, but there was so little water that it was a waste of time. Despite how bad Point Pleasant Canal has been, I went there and found no change though one small striper hit my Z Man paddeltail to save the day.
The morning forecast is for south winds at 10-15 knots with a possibility of showers and thunder storms.
Lilly nails big fluke offshore
Ocean fluking has been off to a very slow start due to cold bottom waters, but fluke pro Dave Lilly proved today that large fluke are there if you hit the right spots at the right time.
Lilly returned to Highlands with a limit that recorded 6.5, 7.1 and 8.2 pounds on the Boga Grip. He also released other keepers plus sea bass and the first sun dials he’s seen this year. Dave’s spot provided a one hour bite until the wind killed the drift.
Tank Matraxia made his first trip of the season a good one as he and “Typhoon” Emil” limited on sea bass during the last day of the N.J. season. Tank also made me jealous by jigging the first sea robin as they fished with Capt. Fletcher Chayes on Two Rivers Charters from Highlands. A small blue was also caught at the Rattlesnake.
Tank recently got an interesting ALS tag return of a striper he tagged three years ago at the Statue of Liberty when it was 26 1/2 inches to the fork of the tail before being caught in Catskill Creek this spring at 35 3/4 inches by a 9-year-old kid who had the thrill of his life.
There wasn’t much weed this morning in Point Pleasant Canal on the outgoing tide, but that didn’t help the fishing as only one small blue was caught. I never had a touch.
Tomorrow looks good again with south winds at 5-10 knots before increasing to 10-15 in the afternoon with gusts to 20.
NJ sea bass ending with a flourish
Sea bass stoks off the N.J. coast have been taking a beating this month as ocean fluking has been poor, but they still appear to be abundant as the season ends tomorrow.
The Ocean Explorer from Belmar reported limit catches today as those using jigs and teasers greatly outfished fares sticking with bait.
Capt. Ron Santee Jr, gave the edge of the channel a try this morning with his Fishermen from Atlantic Highlands, but only drifted short fluke before dogfish took over. Then he ran down the beach where some sea bass and ling were taken among the shorts while a whale put on a show. However, the best news came at the dock when Ron’s son showed up unexpectedly after flying in from L.A. for Father’s Day.
The small blues that have been providing some action for surfcasters at Bay Head the last two days didn’t show up this morning, but Jim Gates got a surprise hit in the wash from a decent school striper that he released.
Andrea’s Toy had a great tilefish trip last week with 30 up to 30 pounds before adding tuna on the surface during the trip home.
Paul Haertel of the JCAA had a real variety trip offshore of Barnegat Inlet last week with two tuna, one cod, one pollock, one bluefish, one fluke, two ling and some sea bass.
The forecast continues good with southwest winds of 5-10 knots — increasing to 10-15 in the afternoon.
Last chance for N.J. sea bass on Monday
Sea bass fishing has held up during the spring season in N.J. with the 10 fish bag, but that ends after Monday — which should lead to more effort on ocean fluking.
Very cold ocean bottom waters have resulted in the best fluking having been in shallow inshore waters that are much warmer. Most probes into normally productive bottoms off the Jersey Shore haven’t worked out well. Bruce Vitale said he drifted aboard the Jamaica II from Brielle one morning this week when there were only some shorts on that fluke specialist. A little more hope came from Capt. Ron Santee Jr. on the Fishermen from Atlantic Highlands as he noted that the ocean finally settled a bit by the end of the week when he managed to find some shorts and keepers — including an 8 3/16-pound personal best for Mike Ramos. The Sea Hunter from that port changes its daily fluking hours on Monday to 8 a.m. to 2 p.m.
The Queen Mary from Point Pleasant reported good bluefish and sea bass fishing early today, before it became a pick after that.
There’s another great forecast for Sunday with south winds at just 5-10 knots. Patchy fog is possible in the morning.
A little more hope was worked out well so f
R. I. P. Capt. Jeff Gutman
There was sad news today as Capt. Jeff Gutman passed away after a battle with cancer. Jeff ran the Voyager from Pt. Pleasant, and specialized in trips far offshore for tilefish.
Decades ago I drove down to North Carolina as that trend-setting pro tried to establish a winter party boat fishery for large school bluefin tuna. We were successful that day, but the logistics of that fishery didn’t work out for a party boat. I’m sure Jeff is scouting out some even better fisheries in heavenly waters right nowl
Fluking on the Sea Hunter out of Atlantic Highlands on a fine day was as usual this spring mostly shorts with a few keepers, but there was one very happy angler as Troy Sgozzafava from Central Valley, Pa. fought a 38-inch striped bass which hit a Gulp intended for fluke.
At Seaside Park, Grumpy’s Tackle reported a run of black drum on clams in the IBSP surf. They noted that one angler weighed in two over 24 pounds, but there was nothing on their weigh-in list. The shop also mentioned some bluefish action on plugs in the back of the bay.
There was a brief flurry in the Bay Head surf this morning as decent-sized blues hit plugs and metal. I had just checked that area after doing nothing in the canal, and it seemed to be quiet. As I headed home there was a call about the bite being on – but I missed it again after turning around. That almost never works out.
The Queen Mary from Point Pleasant got into those blues in the river Wednesday as Capt. Dave Riback was heading out. They ended up with about 100 up to their largest of the year at 8 pounds. The Ketchum family had a hot sea bass jigging bite on a Thursday charter, and limited our for an early return at 11 a.m.
The Saturday morning forecast looks good with south winds at 5-10 knots before increasing to 10-15 in the afternoon.
Tight Lines 