Happy Labor Day And...
We hope everyone enjoyed their Labor Day weekend. We sure did. We are now looking forward to “local summer.” For those locals who sequester themselves for the summer that we have not seen since the end of May, we look forward to seeing you this week. Welcome back.
We’ll skip the shop news and go right to the fishing reports.
There has been some changing going on, but the star of the show is still fluke. The surf is still producing summer flatties for those throwing bucktails and Gulp! The boats have been doing well on the nearshore reefs and wrecks on the same thing.
The small blues have been popping up in the surf on IBSP and around Barnegat Inlet. Cut bunker or mullet has been working for them, or for those who want to throw lures, small metals and epoxy jigs.
The small metals and epoxy jigs have also been working for the Spanish Mackerel and Bonito that have been around. We have heard rumors of false albacore being caught on boats (within sight of land), but not confirmed cases of a shore caught fish yet. Yet…
The cow nose rays are in the surf en-force. If you have your rod spiked fishing bait, keep a close eye on it.
The local docks are still producing lots of spot, some blowfish and some snapper blues. Spearing on a snapper hook under a bobber for the snapper blues, and small pieces of clam, squid or Fish Bites on a flounder rig for the spot and blowfish.
The “summer” may be over but the crabbing remains good on the local docks too. The crabs will be feeding until the bay cools off in a month or so.
Some notable catches from the holiday weekend.
Continuing from the previous report, Lou with a 2.9 pound fluke off the surf caught on a bucktail.
John Kravchak with a 20 inch 3.2 pound fluke from the surf.
Tony Senators with a 21 inch, 3.55 pound from the surf.
Lou strikes again with a nice surf fluke from the surf weighing out at 3.15 pounds.
James Budish with a 5.15 pound, 24 inch fluke. Taken on his boat with an 8 inch Gulp! Grub and a "borrowed" S&S Fluke Nukem bucktail. (Click the links for colors). "Borrowed" is in quotes because he borrowed the bucktail from me but I suspect he has no plans on returning it. But that's what brothers are for I guess...
So as we discussed in the previous fishing reports, Ray went on vacation (again) and came home “sick”. We learned he picked up some sort of bug (but not the one you are thinking of). We suspect it was from all the snuggling he was doing with the racoons…
