Starting Off June Like May Ended
Welcome to June. Just some notes on what is coming up this weekend. The initial weather reports look really good for fishing. The marine forecast is showing light northerly winds for most of the weekend. Hopefully, they are correct.
The bite on the beach has been primarily on bait still, and, for bass, clams is what you want. We have plenty of clams for the weekend. We will have lots of fresh shucked, and, if we run out of that, we have lightly salted shucked clams. We salt our own clams so we can control the amount of salt, which gives you a clam that is better preserved, a little tougher to stay on the hook, without all that being over-done. We take pride in our bait.
We also have fresh bunker, which the bluefish have been hitting in the surf.
For those not wanting to fish bait, poppers during the day have been taking fish, mostly bluefish, while swimming plugs and swim shads have been working in the dark for bass.
There has been good fluke fishing still in the bay, but it is starting to slow down a little. This is a sign the fish are moving back out into the ocean already. Not all of them will go, but there will be a body of fish moving into the surf and out to the nearshore lumps and wrecks to feed as the ocean water warms up. But in the meantime, we have heard reports of some big fish being caught at either end of the bay. Bucktails and Gulp! or spearing & squid on a traditional fluke rig to get them.
Offshore the black sea bass bite is still hot. Salted clams are still the preferred bait, but jigs like the WeFish Slow Pitch Slayers or Nomad Gypsea Jigs are taking fish too.
Here are some notable catches:
Some big fish in the suds. Mark McAuliff just sent us this picture of a 46” striped bass he caught Tuesday morning on Grumpy Salted Clams.
Tom, Jake, and Shane doubled up on clams Tuesday evening. They sent us these pictures within 45 minutes of leaving the shop with their Grumpy Clams.
Our own Scott and Steve M. went to the promised land Tuesday, and hammered sea bass on one the WeFish138 slow pitch slayers.
John and Jeff had a day Tuesday. All on Clams. Nice fish guys!
George Ford with a 31” 11.25lb Bass off the surf on clams on Thursday.
Ray will be MIA from the shop for a little while in case anyone is looking for him. He’s just going on one of his camping trips again, so it’s nothing bad. Unless he encounters a bear…
