NJ fishing reports

[SkunkBoat]

Some news for all you flukers out there. The guy who docks next to me was fluking at Shrewsbury Rocks, saw bunker getting busted, threw a popper and landed a 61" bluefin an hour later

 

[RussGW270]

fluking?

 

[Seafarer_Bob]

Great pics, how do you like the zukes? I am considering a repower on my 282 with 300s

Great report and good job with the extra effort on the way in. I can reach the Haskell area on my brother's 24 Regulator but it's a long day trip out of Highlands at 24kts cruise and I don't have the range to safely make it to the Hudson.
We usually make a couple offshore runs to the AP/ CC every year but Rona put a damper on this season. The plan is to upgrade the Reg this winter to a new 336 Canyon for next season so hopefully we'll see you out there soon.

 

[Seafarer_Bob]

Some news for all you flukers out there. The guy who docks next to me was fluking at Shrewsbury Rocks, saw bunker getting busted, threw a popper and landed a 61" bluefin and hour later

Wow, really early for the BF to be in that close and that must have been a blast. I usually snag and keep one out while trying for fluke and sea bass at the rocks or highlands reef but so far just blues and a stray bass here and there.

 

[SkunkBoat]

fluking?

A fluke is a "summer" flounder. It is a left-eye flounder with a big mouth and teeth. The center of NJ coast is the southern edge of "winter" flounder. They are right-eye flounder with a small toothless mouth. So north of Barnegat Inlet the flounder we catch in the summer are called fluke and in winter they are just flounder. South of Barnegat NJ the fluke are just called flounder because they don't have winter flounder...

 

[leeccoll]

We overnighted at the Hudson Canyon where we lost a yft at the boat and boated another. On the way in we hit the the hot yellowfin bite near the Haskell wreck. Boated two nice yellowfins there. Chunking butterfish with 40# leader and a tiny circle hook was the ticket.
Nice day turned ugly halfway back to port. I feel sorry for the center consoles....

Super! Thanks for the video. Neighbor boat could use a lesson in cooperation.

 

[magicalbill]

Just watched the vid myself.

No wonder you don't allow coolers in the cockpit; I've never seen so much gear, rods, buckets, & supplies on one boat. I would recommend a 330 if you hadn't worked so hard to get your 200's dialed in to your 265. And then there's the fuel burn on the bigger boat. Never mind...

I think it's neat that your all in. I don't understand any of it, but I enjoy following along and can appreciate the "No Holds Barred, Get Outta The Way" approach. Besides, there's no Covid that far out....

 

[SkunkBoat]

Super! Thanks for the video. Neighbor boat could use a lesson in cooperation.

Well, he bitched at us but he DID open his bail and let us have his line so we could untangle. So we thanked him anyways. I think he was disappointed that he did not have a fish on.

 

[SkunkBoat]

No wonder you don't allow coolers in the cockpit; I've never seen so much gear, rods, buckets, & supplies on one boat. I would recommend a 330 if you hadn't worked so hard to get your 200's dialed in to your 265. And then there's the fuel burn on the bigger boat. Never mind...

My brother wanted to bring the cooler so we could carry more ice. I said absolutely no way. we had 200 pounds of ice. Brought the chair because on overnights it is nice to relax in a deck chair...but it was in the way. And there was a box of bait that we were cutting as we go. It should have been all chunked up in buckets before we left the dock.

 

[Iceman2010]

First time tuna fishing, first time offshore , first long trip on my new sailfish, awesome fishing with my son and dad, three generations fishing. Does not get any better, plus we put two YFT into the boat!

 

[SkunkBoat]

Haven't been fishing in a couple weeks. Did some "Boating" with the ladies a few times.

Fluking was on fire last week. Buddy got limits on his boat. YFT was still hot. Dock neighbor got 22 big YFT on poppers.
This week is a blowout with seas 4 to 7ft.

Hoping for a couple mahi mahi trips and an overnight for swordfish in October. Then settle in on striped bass in November.

 

[leeccoll]

Crazy out west Skunk,

White ash was falling down from the sky yesterday from the wildfires raging on.

I haven't been fishing in weeks, the air quality index has been off the charts bad.

What an insane year....

 

[Blaugrana]

Was wondering why we haven’t seen any fishing updates from you!

Ocean has been a mess. Took my family to IBSP Saturday evening for some surf fishing and couldn’t believe what I saw. Surf was a mess, waves were breaking all over the place, and really ripping. Had it all to ourselves which was nice.

I went out on the boat Sunday in the bay. Caught a bunch of junk fish but had a nice fish on but lost it when transitioning the pole to my daughter. Whatever it was gave my bucktail a good haircut and it looks pretty bare now.

Do Stripers not run until November? I was thinking October. Do you ever go for Sea Bass? How close do they come in?

 

[CJ7Rob]

Haven't been fishing in a couple weeks. Did some "Boating" with the ladies a few times.

Fluking was on fire last week. Buddy got limits on his boat. YFT was still hot. Dock neighbor got 22 big YFT on poppers.
This week is a blowout with seas 4 to 7ft.

Hoping for a couple mahi mahi trips and an overnight for swordfish in October. Then settle in on striped bass in November.

I heard the Triple Wrecks for YFT have been on fire.

 

[SkunkBoat]

Was wondering why we haven’t seen any fishing updates from you!

Ocean has been a mess. Took my family to IBSP Saturday evening for some surf fishing and couldn’t believe what I saw. Surf was a mess, waves were breaking all over the place, and really ripping. Had it all to ourselves which was nice.

I went out on the boat Sunday in the bay. Caught a bunch of junk fish but had a nice fish on but lost it when transitioning the pole to my daughter. Whatever it was gave my bucktail a good haircut and it looks pretty bare now.

Do Stripers not run until November? I was thinking October. Do you ever go for Sea Bass? How close do they come in?

One reason I keep this same post going is so I can look back at dates and see where I was and what was biting...Take a look back....

Stripers (bigger ones not the shorts that are around now) will start mid Oct but not really get going until Nov.
Black sea bass is closed right now
Black Sea Bass
10 fish at 12.5 inches May 15 – June 22
2 fish at 12.5 inches July 1 – August 31
10 fish at 12.5 inches Oct. 8—Oct. 31
15 fish at 13 inches Nov. 1—Dec. 31
There will be some "just keeper/just under" size in large numbers at the inshore reef sites. Bigger ones will usually be out in 100-120 ft in late Oct/Nov. I'll look for them out at Shark River Reef and the Resor wreck
This was a Nov trip to Shark River Reef a few years back..

 

[Stephnic]

Fished the 30 line and trolled up two nice yellowfin. Bite shut down then did some chunking three unreal run offs that broke the leader. Not a bad day at all. Hoping to head out this weekend.

 

[SkunkBoat]

So I did not fish in the month of September. Missed the few weather opportunities.
Black Sea Bass reopened Thurs 10/8 so we got out Friday morning. Stopped at Sea girt reef and anchored on a wreck. Very quickly got 6 nice keepers in a mix of throwbacks and then it shut down. We moved around but no more luck. Ran out to Shark River reef and it was a Head Boat parking lot and nothing really biting. So, as we are prone to do, we blew off sea bass and went trolling the Mud Hole for mahi and bluefins. We lost one fish on a ballyhoo that was either a small bluefin or a false albacore. Then we trolled mud hole lobster pots and we lost an 8 pound mahi at the boat. That was encouraging because we thought mahi might be gone due to 65 degree water. We should have stuck it out on those pots but we ran 20 more miles to the glory hole pots, knowing we were going to get beaten up in a SW wind on the 46 mile ride home. We saw a bunch of 10 inch mahi, had 1 knock down, caught nothing and had a crappy ride home.
No pix, havent even cleaned the fish yet.

 

[Stephnic]

We fished the deep water reef Friday. It was a 28 mile run from the inlet. Limited out on sea bass as wind Continued to pick up. Was going to head to a set of pots about ten miles away the changed our mind and headed home to clean fish and give the boat a good cleaning for all rain we are going to get Sunday and Monday. Another boat in the marina had 12 mahi pot hoping at the cigar.

 

[SkunkBoat]

We couldn't wait any longer. "Iffy" forecast but it was flat when we left at 5 am.
Plan was to run 78 miles to the hot yellowfin tuna bite out past Triple wrecks, catch some YFT, go out to Hudson if the weather was good and troll pots for Mahi, then hit some wrecks on the way back for black sea bass.

So we reversed things, stopped after sunrise 40 miles at the Resor wreck on the way out, limited out with 20 nice black seabass in 40 minutes, then continued on to tuna.
It got "sportier as we went. Came into a fleet at 70 miles, just past the Haskell. 5 or 6 Humpback whales working bait. Seas jumped up to 3 to 5 just as we got there. We slowed to trolling speed, dropped just one rod back with a blue/white chugger daisy chain and headed to some whale blows. It got bit in 30 seconds. Boated a nice 48 inch YFT. Trolled around for a while but just kept getting little tunny (aka False Albacore aka Bonita). Went to the downwind side of some whales and drifted baits, throwing some dead peanut bunker. YFT exploded on the peanuts at the surface but our baits were down! My brother cranked his bait up and hooked up. Unprepared as always... I quickly rigged a big spinning rod with a circle hook, flipped out a peanut bunker and was on in an explosion. We boated the double, though mine took 40 minutes on that spinning combo. Never again...PAIN!

We had enough tuna. Seas were too big to go out to the Hudson pots for Mahi so we ran in to the Chicken canyon pots and found some small mahi biting. Also caught & released a small Bluefin tuna.

We managed to catch all of our target species...SUCCESS!!!

 

[SkunkBoat]

some "back at the dock" pix...