NJ fishing reports

[SkunkBoat]

Hi Skunk, thank you for all the reports and Intel! The weekend weather looks great so I'll be running my brother's 28' Regulator out of the Highlands this Saturday and Sunday. Planning to Seabass in that wreck zone (not sure what it's called) about 5nm North of LI / Humpty where those big mounts are, we crushed the SB in there last year with a pretty decent grade of fish. Hopefully we'll limit early enough to do some trolling/jigging for the BFT near Little Italy.

BTW, where abouts are the "Farms"? I'm not interested in tangling with a giant but they usually mix with the smaller ones.

Those mounds are on Shark River Reef. Look it up on NJ DEP site. All of the rockpile and wreck positions are listed.
https://njdep.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=01e06ca960a3414381fc69b797a52901
https://dep.nj.gov/njfw/wp-content/uploads/njfw/Shark-River-Reef.pdf

We did well on the wrecks there for SB. None of the party boats were on rockpiles if thats a clue. I think they try to avoid smaller fish now.


Farms is the area Northeast of Shrewsbury Rocks just as it drops toward the beginning of the Mudhole. You will damn near pass right over it heading from Highlands to Shark River reef.
Near the beginning of the Ambrose-Barnegat shipping channel.
There is a very large outcropping on that west edge that holds a lot of seabass.

 

[Seafarer_Bob]

Thank you very much. Hopefully I'll have something to report back.

 

[SkunkBoat]

We fished the past two fridays first light troll for tuna..no bite, lots of bait.
Finished the days at wrecks that start with "L". Very large seabass on them. Seabass is done until October.



Both fridays there was a boat sharking near the wreck. They caught very big Threshers while we watched them go airbourne. Charter guys that normally would be looking for tuna are sharking just to bend rods.

Where are the mid range tuna? water hasn't topped 65 deg yet. Some days its been 60 at Humpty.

There are reports of fantastic YFT way down in Spencer to Baltimore canyons. I can reach Spencer but can't get the weather..

 

[Seafarer_Bob]

We stared Saturday at the Rattlesnake outside of the Shrewsbury rocks, lots of short Sea bass and only one keeper after 45 minutes so moved out to the edge of the mudhole. Lots of marks but nobody was catching so went all the way to the Shark River reef and ended up with 14 decent ones but had to work for it. There was a lot of bait mid water but didn't see any marks that looked like tuna. A little choppy but was able to cruise
33kts in and out. We stayed too long and it blew up on the way in, rounding Sandy hook wind against tide was probably as choppy as I've seen it.

 

[SkunkBoat]

A buddy caught a nice 5 man limit of fluke to 5 lbs off Long Branch on Saturday. I was shocked.

 

[SkunkBoat]

We stared Saturday at the Rattlesnake outside of the Shrewsbury rocks, lots of short Sea bass and only one keeper after 45 minutes so moved out to the edge of the mudhole. Lots of marks but nobody was catching so went all the way to the Shark River reef and ended up with 14 decent ones but had to work for it. There was a lot of bait mid water but didn't see any marks that looked like tuna. A little choppy but was able to cruise
33kts in and out. We stayed too long and blew up on the way in, rounding Sandy hook wind against tide was probably as choppy as I've seen it.

we have been seeing incredible clouds of sand eels out in the 100-150ft range. They cover wrecks and make them look enormous. No whales around. No tuna on troll or jig.

 

[Seafarer_Bob]

we have been seeing incredible clouds of sand eels out in the 100-150ft range. They cover wrecks and make them look enormous. No whales around. No tuna on troll or jig.

A guy in our marina with tripple 300s left the dock pre dawn and ran all around on Sunday, loads of bait but he didn't see any signs of tuna at all. We caught 3 keeper fluke within sight of the dock that morning .

 

[JerseySure]

Hey all of you out of Manasquan Inlet, the Manasquan Fishing Club has some really great features. A private text meeting site for current fishing intel, really good guest speakers, competitions, meet once a month on first Friday night in town with pizza, sinker/bucktail making day, all types of fishing lessons for kids and adults and more for members. We are looking for new members. Next meeting July 7, 2023 in the Womens Club building. Google or Instagram us then come to a meeting.

 

[SkunkBoat]

Gulf Stream eddy finally pushed into the Hudson and Toms canyons But seas are huge for the rest of the week

 

[athomp228]

Hi Skunk, thank you for all the reports and Intel! The weekend weather looks great so I'll be running my brother's 28' Regulator out of the Highlands this Saturday and Sunday. Planning to Seabass in that wreck zone (not sure what it's called) about 5nm North of LI / Humpty where those big mounts are, we crushed the SB in there last year with a pretty decent grade of fish. Hopefully we'll limit early enough to do some trolling/jigging for the BFT near Little Italy.

BTW, where abouts are the "Farms"? I'm not interested in tangling with a giant but they usually mix with the smaller ones.

A little late but here is my mark on The Farms for future.

 

[SkunkBoat]

Thursday the monster ledge had crazy whale life. Friday Texas Tower had bft and whales. Hudson west wall had tiles. Heard of bigeyes and yft on east wall.
Manasquan river dock fishing Stripers at night on outgoing tide

 

[01Sailfish]

Probably heading out to the Sea Girt Reef and Axel tomorrow for some fluke. Will keep you posted!

 

[SkunkBoat]

Heading out in the dark & fog tonight. Good reports of YFT at or near the Haskell/Triple wrecks area...65-75 miles

 

[SkunkBoat]

Boated 2 of 5 YFT out past the Haskell in the fleet. We left and looked for mahi in the Hudson pots no luck. Caught some tilefish. Found skipjacks busting and caught a few screamers on the dock rods. Hit the Resor on the way home for our 4 black seabass. Wreck is covered with big ones

 

[SkunkBoat]

While cleaning tuna my brother just caught the biggest dock striper ever. On my tiny dock rod

 

[SkunkBoat]

Got out today for a nice easy fluking trip. Found best bite at Axel Reef SE corner in low rocks. Between three of us we got 6 keeper fluke to 6 pounds. and our three seabass

 

[Father's Day]

Got out today for a nice easy fluking trip. Found best bite at Axel Reef SE corner in low rocks. Between three of us we got 6 fluke to 6 pounds. and our three seabass

Nice catch, went out to Sandy Hook reef yesterday and caught all shorts. Did get my first seabass15.5 and 13 never tried for them before. And never will again, because when I took them home to cook right before his putting the seasoning on them, worms started to pop out. I knew they were in cod, I just never knew they were in sea bass, shame because I was really looking forward to it.
Stay safe my friend maybe I'll see you out there one day

 

[SkunkBoat]

Nice catch, went out to Sandy Hook reef yesterday and caught all shorts. Did get my first seabass15.5 and 13 never tried for them before. And never will again, because when I took them home to cook right before his putting the seasoning on them, worms started to pop out. I knew they were in cod, I just never knew they were in sea bass, shame because I was really looking forward to it.
Stay safe my friend maybe I'll see you out there one day

strange..I've cleaned a thousand seabass in the last 30 years and never saw a worm. I've seen very few in cod and flounder and grouper. Lots of them in swordfish.

I rank black seabass at the top of deliciousness scale.

 

[Saltyone]

strange..I've cleaned a thousand seabass in the last 30 years and never saw a worm. I've seen very few in cod and flounder and grouper. Lots of them in swordfish.

I rank black seabass at the top of deliciousness scale.

Yeah, I don't think Ive ever seen worms in sea bass. See them in the larger ling cods and halibut though.

Agree, sea bass is great. I prefer that and lings over halibut.

 

[SkunkBoat]

Yeah, I don't think Ive ever seen worms in sea bass. See them in the larger ling cods and halibut though.

Agree, sea bass is great. I prefer that and lings over halibut.

Different seabass on east coast. Black seabass.