Bluefish and Weakfish and Cobia! Oh My!
We had a lot of good fishing this weekend, and a lot of variety. But first, shop news…
June is a special month for many reasons. One event that makes it a little less special is the arrival of biting insects. Mosquitoes, gnats, black flies, and soon, green head flies (arguably the worst of them all). Now is the time to stock up on insect repellant. The best insect repellant for all of the biters above is Captain Rons All Natural Insect Repellant, and it is the only one we know of that works on green heads. Its formula contains only 100% natural plant oil repellents; DEET free. And a nice plus, it has a pleasant, non-chemical smell. Get some now, before the bugs are biting at your ankles and making your outdoor activities miserable.
We got some new stuff in the shop. First, we got in another small shipment of Van Staal reels. We have them in the online store and in the brick & mortar store. If you don’t see what you need online, we may have one in the brick & mortar, so feel free to call the shop or reach out to us at the Contact Us page.
We got in some rods and rod blanks from ODM. If you are looking to get a new ODM rod built and were waiting for a blank to be available, they might have come in. Check with Bob. We also got in the new FrontierX Boat Rod in the smallest size. Both conventional and spinning, they are rated for casting lures from ½ oz to 1 ¼ oz. For dropping jigs, they can handle a little more weight. These are going to be excellent fluke rods and blackfish jigging rods. Ray has already asked Bob to build him one in his favorite colors.
For those of you who like to clam, we have plenty of clam rakes in stock. We also got in a nice order of clam baskets. They come with floats, so you can tie them to you as you walk along and rake the clam beds. They are an in-store only item, so feel free to come by and pick one up.
The fishing was good this weekend. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, a skipping CD, or someone stuck in a Boomerang (give me a break, I am trying to cover the metaphor for all of the generations…), the bass are still on clams in the surf. The black drum are also making cameo appearances with the striped bass fishermen. We heard some reports from people who said they fished clams and caught nothing, and the one common denominator is they found a spot, set up camp, and spent the whole day there. Don’t do that. If you want to catch fish, and have not had a bite within 30 to 45 minutes, move to a new spot. That is what the anglers who were successful were doing.
The bluefish have moved into the surf too. Poppers have been the best way to get them, but they are also taking bunker chunks and mullet.
Also new in the surf, we have been hearing from some local anglers that they are starting to see some nice fluke in the surf. Bucktails and Gulp! for the win there.
Probably one of the weirder things we heard this weekend are reports of fish showing up that shouldn’t be here for another month to month and a half. We heard a couple reports of houndfish being caught by guys fishing for bluefish, and we had a cobia weighed in on Monday (see below). The water “should” be a little cool for these fish to be around, but I guess they didn’t get that memo.
Here are some notable catches:
Big Bluefish are showing on the surf. Here’s @volcanick28 with a jumbo he caught in Island Beach State Park Friday morning.
Congrats to our boy Pauly from @bpmfishing_nj on this BEAST he caught Friday. This fish measured a whopping 53” long.
Bluefish on Topwater! Good customer Richie @the_pa_surfcaster7 had some nice blues Sunday morning.
Ryan with a 4.3 pound weakfish caught in the local surf (yes, the surf) on a white paddletail.
Samantha with a 4.9 pound, 26.5 inch bluefish on bunker.
Mr. Striper Bites himself Jeff Bajek with a 43.5” 26 lb cobia off the surf.
Ray has taken a week off. He claims he is going camping, but last week he shaved off his beard because he found a tick on himself. Use your imagination. No, it’s not that, it’s worse. Still not that, it’s even worse. So, even though the tick was nowhere near his beard, he shaved it to a goatee. After some “constructive criticism” from the Grumpys crew, he shaved it down to a moustache. He got even more “constructive criticism” (maybe less constructive this time) because he looked like he could star in a certain type of movie from the 1970’s. Think “boom chicka wow wow”. Yeah, that bad. So we think he’s not actually camping. He’s hiding in his basement until his beard grows back.
