Tight Lines

As previously noted, fluke pro Dave Lilly of Hazlet had a serious illness during the winter and probably shouldn’t have been fishing in the first fluke tournament 0f the season — but he was proud to announce that even “half dead” he won everything he was eligible for.

I hadn’t received any notice of the first annual Frank Thomas Memorial Fluke Tournament out of.Captain’s Cove Marina in Highlands — and haven’t found any official results so far.

As tough as the fishing was in a southwest wind, Lilly said a 5 pound,10.7 ounce fluke that hit in the bay was big enough to beat a 5.1-pounder by Tommy Licknack on TNT. Lilly and AL tumalo were fishing from their friend Tony’s Parker

There are only two days left to get in on the NJ sea bass season. The Golden Eagle from Belmar had “more than a few limits” today plus some ling and a few fluke.

Bob Matthews at Fisherman’s Den in Belmar Marina says the sea bass boats will be switching to fluke after Tuesday. The Capt. Cal had a 6-pound fluke pool winner yesterday. Bob notes that triggerfish are hitting in the inlet.

There were no signs of bluefish in the Bay Head surf this morning, and I was happy just to hook a 16-inch fluke on a Deadly Dick.

The forecast is for south winds at 10-15 knots in the morning which increase to 15-20 with gusts to 25 in the afternoon.

Paul Haertel with a 6.45-pound fluke in the ocean off Barnegat

Chuck Many has been fighting through bluefish chopping his eels this week, but a striped bass that did reach the bait first was a notable one. Though not among the largest released from Ty Man out of Highlands lately, it was a special bass as the 44-inch, 35-pounder received a Grey satellite tag that will track its movements until a scheduled release of the tag. Note the tag in the photo.

Though retrieval of the tag is a shot in the dark, people walking on beaches have been finding them. There was some concern a couple of weeks ago when one was pinpointed on Great Kills Beach by the satellite, and then tracked to residential areas before Grey was finally notified. There is a substantial reward involved.

The Crisdel from Brielle Yacht Club just got back from Florida this week, and made a striper trip. Capt. Chris De Stefano joined the crew as they trolled all their ocean hot spots with only small blues hitting and not a single striper was even marked. That was the only striper trip they’re making before switching to the canyons this Thursday. Frank Criscola said that was the first time his boat ever failed to catch a striper before the switch.

The Golden Eagle from Belmar has been limiting out regularly with sea bass, but encountered a tough bite today in a rough sea stirred up by last night’s winds. Tomorrow looks a lot better, and they have room on the afternoon trip.

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Small craft warnings are coming down this evening, and west winds at just 5-10 knots are predicted in the morning before increasing to 10-15 in the afternoon.

The Jamaica from Brielle has room on tonight’s 7;30 half-night ling trip.

There’s lots of good fishing on tap for the weekend as long as the tropical storm far offshore keeps its distance –and the best gift for a fisherman father is the opportunity to fish that day.

A small craft warning goes up at 5 p.m. and through Saturday afternoon, but it should be fishable early tomorrow with southwest winds at 10-15 knots plus gusts to 20. Seas are 3 to 5 feet, and there’s a chance of showers in the morning and thunder storms later in the day.

Chris DeGennaro of Wall took the opportunity to run far offshore today and was quickly blasted by a pack of bigeyes with four of the five eventually being boated.

Much further inshore, the Queen Mary from Pt. Pleasant had another fine jigging trip for bluefish before adding sea bass to the bags. However, they’re booked until Monday.

The Golden Eagle from Belmar reported sea bass fishing slowed to a grind today, but those who worked at it still did well. There’s plenty of room on the weekend afternoon trips.

The Sea Hunter from Atlantic Highlands continues to enjoy plenty of fluke action even though keepers aren’t plentiful, Anglers are advised to be at the dock by 7;30 over the weekend.

The Bay Head surf looked promising for blues yesterday morning, but the only successful angler this morning was Nick Sardone who released a 29-inch striper on his first cast with a Hopkins — and added a blue on his next cast.

While other party boats have been ignoring them, the Queen Mary from Point Pleasant has been jigging mostly small blues consistently. Today was very good, and there were more 5-7-pounders among them; After everyone is limited, Capt. Dave Riback switches to sea bass which have also been abundant.

More good news today is that surfcasters at Bay Head also got a brief shot at blues. Jim Gates said choppers were blasting peanut bunkers beyond the outer bar at low tide and never came in, but he and another angler each caught one in the 8-pound class by casting metal not far from the beach. Another one was hooked on a salted clam. Yesterday morning an angler who had been fishing clam regularly without success was rewarded with a 30-inch striper.

The sea bass fishery has been holding up despite all the pressure on it. Tank Matraxia fished aboard Tagged Fish out of Highlands yesterday and reported the boat was limited in 2 1/2 hours. There wasn’t much variety, but Tank had a small blue as part of a doubleheader — and was able to put ALS tags in a couple of small fluke and a blackfish.

The Golden Eagle from Belmar reported sea bass limits again today, but noted they are sold out Saturday and Sunday mornings.

Friday’s forecast is for southwest winds at 5-10 knots before going south at 15-20 in the afternoon.

Following is a press release updating the bluefish management situation:

AFMC and ASMFC Approve Bluefish Rebuilding Plan and Revised Allocations

The Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council (Council) and Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Bluefish Management Board (Board) jointly recommended approval of the Bluefish Allocation and Rebuilding Amendment. The Amendment updates the Fishery Management Plan (FMP) goals and objectives, initiates a rebuilding plan, establishes new allocations between the commercial and recreational sectors, implements new commercial allocations to the states, revises the process for quota transfers between sectors, and revises how the management plan accounts for management uncertainty.

The Council and Board initiated the Amendment in December 2017 to consider revisions to the commercial and recreational fisheries allocations and the state-specific commercial allocations. In 2019, an operational stock assessment for bluefish indicated the stock was overfished, and the Council and Board subsequently decided to incorporate the rebuilding plan in the Amendment.

During their joint meeting last week, the Council and Board reviewed a summary of the five virtual hearings and written comments submitted by 378 individuals and organizations, in addition to the recommendations of their joint Advisory Panel.   

After weighing the pros and cons of shorter and longer rebuilding plan timeframes, the Council and Board ultimately selected the rebuilding plan which utilizes a constant fishing mortality approach and is projected to rebuild the stock in 7 years. Rebuilding progress will be analyzed through management track stock assessments every two years. The management track assessment scheduled for later this month will be the first step in informing specifications for the 2022-2023 fishing years.

The revised sector allocations increase the recreational allocation from 83% to 86% of the acceptable biological catch and decrease the commercial allocation from 17% to 14%. The Council and Board used catch data from 1981-2018 as the basis for sector allocations since it more accurately captures the cyclical nature of the fishery, while providing each sector with sufficient access to the resource considering historical usage.

The Council and Board based state commercial allocations on more recent data to improve efficiency within the commercial fishery and better reflect the current distribution of the stock. As such, the Amendment allocates a baseline quota of 0.1% to each state, and then allocates the rest of the commercial quota based on landings data from 2009 to 2018 (see Table 1 below). Recognizing that several states will be losing quota during a time when the coastwide commercial quota is already at an historic low, the Council and Board decided to phase-in the allocation changes over 7 years in order to reduce short-term economic impacts to the affected commercial fishing industry. The Council and Board also committed to reviewing the approved state allocations within 5 years

The Amendment also updates the sector transfer process to allow for quota transfers in either direction between the commercial and recreational sectors. Previously, quota could only be transferred from the recreational sector to the commercial fishery. The transfers will now be capped at 10% of the acceptable biological catch for a given year.

Finally, the Amendment modified the management uncertainty tool within the FMP to a sector-specific approach. It allows the Council and Board to apply a buffer to either sector, in the form of a quota reduction, to account for management uncertainty during specifications. While this tool has not been used often, the modified approach allows managers to better target areas of uncertainty within one sector without reducing the quota or harvest limit in the other sector.

As next steps, the Council will forward its recommended approval of the Amendment to NOAA Fisheries for final consideration and implementation. The Commission will consider final approval of the Amendment at its August meeting.

Additional information about this amendment is available at: https://www.mafmc.org/actions/bluefish-allocation-amendment.

Fine weather continues with a forecast of northwest winds at 5-10 knots before shifting to southwest with gusts to 20 in the afternoon.

Sea bass reports continue to be excellent as the season draws to a close. The Golden Eagle from Belmar had a boat limit and added some fluke and also some spot — a small fish normally only found close to shore. On the way in they spotted a 10-foot hammerhead shark plus whales and dolphins fairly close to shore..

The Monmouth County striped bass surf bite on sand fleas didn’t happen this morning for Frank Manzi and I, but Frank cast a popper before leaving and caught a bluefish.

Bluefish seem to be showing up in the warmer waters of Ocean County as Betty & Nick’s Fishing Club members were posting shots of small to medium choppers that were hitting just about everything. There was even a semi-tropical houndfish — but no Spanish mackerel so far.

Not many stripers seem to be getting through, but that wasn’t the case yesterday as Robert Kopf landed a 54-inch linesider while casting a green Ava jig. It was only photographed on the sand before release and the lure is the only thing to give an indication of size. See photo at bottom of page.

Chuck Many said blues were relentless today in the ocean off northern Monmouth County as his crew on Tyman out of Highlands only managed one big striper.

There was no bluefish problem for Vinny D’Anton and I as we cast in Shark River to no avail before heading to the nearby surf to fish with sand fleas. Tommy Cox had been casting a small plug that produced three small bass, and we knew Jim Louro had caught a 27-incher on a Band of Anglers Dart Spin We landed three stripers during a brief try with sand fleas– and I enjoyed a good battle before releasing a 30-incher. That was my second legal bass since starting surf fishing this year with a 28-incher yesterday.

Good weather continues with a marine forecast of northwest winds at 10-15 knots before shifting to 5-10 west in the afternoon.

The Golden Eagle from Belmar reported a boat limit of sea bass by 10:30 this morning.

The Paramount from Brielle has also been sticking with the outstanding sea bass fishing along with some ling. They sail daily at 6:30 a.m.

The Sea Hunter from Atlantic Highlands reported the best fluke action of the season today. It was mostly shorts, but one angler limited.

Matt Calabria put his brother Kevin into a huge 457-pound thresher shark a few days ago. Matt said it was Kevin’s first shark! I’m trying to get a photo and more info.

The spring surf striper bite on mole crabs (sand fleas) has been slow to start, but Vinny D’Anton caught three schoolies yesterday morning to get things started in a very comfortable surf.

I joined him this morning and watched Tommy Cox release his first surf striper of the season while Vinny also hooked a short. I couldn’t get a bump during my first surf effort of the year, and was shocked when I finally hooked up to a fish that was taking line off what I thought was a fairly heavy drag. It turned out to be a well-rounded bass that was 28 inches on the nose. That pleasant surprise was only the second time I’ve started started my surf season with a keeper – though it was released. Hopefully, that will lead to many more after a tough 2020 in the surf.

Chuck Many said bluefish created havoc on his eels as he fished further up the shore on his Tyman from Highlands, but his crew managed to release a few stripers from 36 to 47 pounds.

Dave Lilly of Hazlet is recovering from a serious illness, but that striper and fluke pro was up to the task of reeling in the 300 feet of wire needed to get down to bass in 40-foot depths in Raritan Bay as Tony Maja bunker spoons in every color tried produced 11 releases from 28 inches to three in the 30-pound class for the crew.

The Golden Eagle from Belmar had another great day of sea bass fishing and added some ling plus a big fluke.

The marine weather forecast is for south winds at 5-10 knots with a chance of morning showers.

Capt. Vinny Vetere has been enjoying great striper action on his Katfish from Great Kills and sent one of last week’s photos.

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The cold east winds are finally shifting, with south at 10-15 knots and gusts to 20 predicted in the morning with a chance of showers before possible thunderstorms in the afternoon. Calming west winds will be following during the week,

The Golden Eagle from Belmar reported seas were comfortable today as they had a good mix of short and legal sea bass which included many limits. Bob Matthews at Fisherman’s Den in Belmar Marina says his rental skiffs have been doing well with keeper fluke in Shark River.

The Elaine B. II from Highlands reported several fluke limits boated during Saturday’s trip from Bahrs Landing.

There’s been a big change recently from 90 degree days and light winds to a nasty sea and sweatshirt temperatures, but the sea bass bite continues — and the Sunday forecast is for a shift to southeast winds at just 5-10 knots

Though big bluefish are chopping up mo-jos being trolled in Raritan Bay, there have been some “eating-size” blues hitting jigs in the ocean for party boat anglers. The Queen Mary from Point Pleasant got into 2-4–pounders with a 6-pound pool winner on Tuesday for their first good jigging in some time. Wednesday produced a boat limit of 3-7-pounders before they finished up with sea bass. Reservations are being taken for the first tuna trip on June 29.

The Golden Eagle went back out today and reported many sea bass limits plus ling, some mackerel, some blackfish that had to be released — and about a dozen winter flounder. There are a few openings for the morning trip.

It was a lot nicer day on the ocean off St. Lucie Inlet in Florida as Bob Correll ran his Sea Vee 32 offshore to drift live threadfin herring which they jigged on the way out. Bob’s wife Mary Agnes hooked her first sailfish which put on quite a show before being released.

Though some fishing trips were called off today due to east winds, it may be more fishable tomorrow with those winds down to 10-15 knots except for gusts to 20 around mid-day.

Canyon tolling has been good when conditions are right. Blue Runner Sportfishing from Pt. Pleasant reported a great trip June 9-10 for the Doug Stark party as they added two bigeyes and six yellowfins to lots of bluefins. See photo below.

Capt. Vinny Vetere was into the monster stripers yesterday as 10 from 39 to 53 pounds were released from his Katfish out of Great Kills. Vetere may have room on Sunday.