REPORTS OF RIVER, BAY AND OCEAN FISHING

Fluke fishing is finally beginning to pick up this week. With less than 3 weeks to go in the season ( unless they extend it which may happen) I have been seeing some great catches at the dock. Captain Kenny on the K-Kat just hit the dock with some real nice fluke. He said that he wished that he had started the day out for fluke instead of the babylike weakfish that everyone has been catching. The weakfishing is good but the sizes are not there. They seem to be getting smaller every year. Jimmy Morenz was reminiscing about 20 years ago when the smallest weakfish would be 7 lbs. Back then he reminded me we had huge schools of sandeels which the weakies among others would gorge on. We haven't seen sandeels in N.J. in 15 years. I will have to look into why.

The Hyper Striper just got in from an overnight canyon trip. They had two yellowfins Tuesday Night. Last week was a bit different, I forgot to mention the 4 100 + yellowfin tuna brought in by Bill DeMott of Sea Bright on his boat the "Heavy Metal".

Kenny K-Kat also e-mailed me from the weekend.
Weakfishing remains solid, although typically tougher on weekends with insane amounts of boat traffic. Good catches for the Dan Buchan party, the Kurt Franhien party, and the Dave Schreckenstien party. The Mike Tobin party experienced the only tough trip this month, right on the new moon. Fishing bounced right back for the Ron Jarabek party, The David Lazarus party, and the Michael Borys party, who spent the second half of their day anchored on a wreck in the bay, bailing porgies as fast as they could get baits back to the bottom. The bay is loaded with porgies, which can be a nuisiance of you are not targeting them.

One of my weekend warriors Ron Motyka reports: "Hi Jay, Still catching them Fluke. Sat we were in NY again, just on the other side of Roamers light house in Ambrose channel. The faster the drift the more fish we caught, In outgoing tide in 70ft of water we landed 8 keepers and about 12 shorts. It seemed strange that we never caught a single Robin or Skate. (I guess I shouldn't complain). The bay had some huge swells this weekend, in fact I heard several Mayday calls to Sandy Hook C.G. Maybe these people have watched "The Perfect Storm" too many times on HBO !!! Any-way the surf kept my little unsinkable legend in bay waters all weekend. I did see some nice sea bass, triggers and porgies fished off the reef. Some guy at the Skipper Shop was saying he saw multiple great-white dorsal fins in his bunker chum slick just west of the Farms. (After a couple of beers and that Sun I guess a big blue shark could become a Man-eater) just wondering if you heard anything of these reports ??? See you soon, Ron Moyk"

Don't worry Ron,... "fish happens!"

click here for 2001 NJ DEP FISHING MINIMUM SIZES AND LIMITS

http://www.bahrs.com/weekfisrep.html