Working AC and a Full Report
If I said anything mean about Ray in the past week, I am inclined to take it back. I am not going to, but I am feeling inclined to. Why? Because Ray came through with getting the AC fixed in the Online Store / Dispensary of Fishing Information office. And because of that, we are going to have a longer, sort of a catch up report.
In shop news, we added a strange, new, and very interesting product to the store and online store. We were receiving a lot of requests for these, so we brought them in. We have the Promar castable crab traps. Yes, you read that correctly, it is a crab trap that you can cast with your fishing rod. You are going to need a rod with a bit of backbone to do so. On the days when you cannot decide if you want to go fishing or crabbing, these will solve your dilemma.
The new ODM rods are very popular. We are already sold out of one of the models of the new Genesis Surf Rod. The Frontier X Boat Rods are very popular too. If you want one, don’t wait too long. Also, we have the blanks if you want a Frontier X boat rod custom built by Blackcloud Bob.
As far as the fishing goes, we are sliding into a summer pattern, which is not a bad thing.
The striped bass are still around, but with the water warming up the bite is slowing down a little. Bait is still the king, both clams and bunker, and low-light or no-light conditions are best. Keep an eye on your rods because there are critters bigger and meaner than striped bass in the surf now. We have heard reports of sharks and some big sting rays being landed at night in the surf.
In the daytime, fluke is the primary species to target in the surf. Do I really need to tell you what is catching them? It hasn’t changed for a month. Ok, for those of you who are new to these reports, and those suffering from a vitamin B-12 deficiency, I will repeat it. Jigs and Gulp!. The fluke fishing is picking up for the boats too, with some nice fluke starting to be taken on the artificial reefs off the jersey coast.
In the bay, your best bet to put together a good catch is to go crabbing. We have heard some really good reports on the crabs the past couple days. It would be a good time to try a castable crab trap.
Here are some “weigh ins” from the past few days, in no particular order.
Larry, a shop regular, brought in a pair of fluke, the biggest dropping the scale down to 5 pounds. He got the fish on a bucktail with Gulp!.
Shop employee Jenni currently has the biggest fluke of any of the shop employees, taking the title from Frank and his fluke from last week. Her fish was 30 inches long and weighed 12 pounds. She got it on a 6" Gulp! Grub
And proving the Gulp! isn’t just for fluke, @skizzo.195 sent in this picture of a Cobia he landed on Gulp!.
And finally, Bryan Medhaug brought in this nice 22inch fluke he pulled out of the island Beach State Park surf on a S&S Bucktail with, you guessed it, Gulp!.
I am so happy the AC is fixed I am not going to pick on Ray this report. He is probably not going to be happy with me since I cranked the temp way down and am currently enjoying the winter-like conditions in here.
