Fluke, Sand Fleas, Striped Bass, and some Blues
As usual, first, shop news…
Our fishing reports have been scarce because we have been busy. Busy working. Yeah, we agree, that stinks for us. But we are here for your fishing needs.
The first thing that has kept us busy is our S&S Bucktails order. According to Ray, it’s the largest order we have sent to S&S. It’s so big, we haven’t quite got it all yet. But S&S has delivered most of it and is working on the final items. What was in it? Here you go:
- Fluke Nukem Jigs
- John Skinner Fluke Jigs
- BW Phil A Ay Jigs
- Pro Rockhopper Bucktails
- John Skinner Smiling Bill Bucktails
- Rockhopper Bucktails
We also got a restock of Striper Bites lures, including a new color: parrot. Available both in-store and online, these are selling quickly.
We also received another shipment of sand flea rakes, because, well, see below. These are also selling quickly. Available in-store only.
The fishing is still good. We are switching over to a more summer-like pattern, which makes sense as we just celebrated the summer solstice and all. There are still bass in the surf, and they are still taking clams or sand fleas. The bite for them has slowed a bit, however, but there are still some nice fish out there.
The fluke have easily made up for the slacking striped bass. The fluke bite off the surf has been very good, and some nice fish are being caught. Anglers are using bucktails and Gulp! to target the fluke, but also sand fleas are taking fluke. The fluke are right in the wash too, so a lighter spinning rod like a ODM DNA 7'6" Back Bay or a Tsunami Airwave Elite Light surf rods paired with a light reel like the Shimano Vanford or Twinpower XD, or a Van Staal VR 50, will be perfect for a day of bucktailing the surf. You don't need to cast very far, and if you walk out to knee deep water, you probably walked past a few fish.
The fluke bite is also picking up for the boats too. However, what we have been hearing is that it is tough to put together a catch with the new regulations. Getting the "over 18" was easy for the angers we heard from, but finding two fish in the 17 to 17.9999 inch slot was proving to be difficult.
The bluefish bite in the surf has been spotty but there have been showing up. Mullet has been the bait of choice, but cut bunker has been working too. We have heard a few rumors of anglers hooking into stuff that is hard to stop. A few have turned out to be cow-nosed rays, and a few ended as bite offs, leading us to think some toothy critters are roaming around now
Crabbing on the local docks is good. Bunker is the prime bait here, and if you want to make this interesting we have castable crab traps that you can use on your fishing rod.
Here are some notable recent catches.
Jarrett reported a banner day with fluke up to 22” 3.65 lbs off the beach on S&S Bucktails and Gulp! He said him and his buddy had over 100 fish.
Brian Larkin with an awesome 22.5 inch, 4.5 pound surf fluke on Gulp caught with his 9ft Grumpys Sandstorm rod.
Dan with a 22 inch, 3.5 pound fluke on a bucktail and Gulp! off the surf.
Fluke bite has been fire. Manuel with a very nice 24inch 4.8 pound fluke on Gulp!.
Kun Lam found out there’s still some drum around! He picked this up on sand crabs. We’ve still got some rakes heading into the weekend, but these guys will also hit clam.
Ray was lamenting that he recently burned himself with hot coffee. We will not say where, as Ray has been researching Stella Liebeck’s case to see if he has a windfall. Ray blames a clogged coffee dispenser that suddenly and forcefully became unclogged for his burns. We think it may be his “Airplane The Movie” style drinking problem…
We think maybe he should switch to iced coffee.