609-494-5739 For the most part the local troll bite has been quality with some really nice fish coming up. We’ve got the spring’s largest fish here now!!! Go fish! Randy Townsend got a good one on the troll yesterday. He was working the waters off IBSP when this large striped bass ate a Tony Maja #4 two-tone green bunker spoon.
Reports from this morning were slow; however, Jeff Warford went out this afternoon and found them. He got a good one among others pulling spoons.
Looks like another wave of bluefish flooded our area. Yesterday afternoon we got some great reports of medium to large size blues. The racers are in the bay, inlet and the surf. We got positive reports from the mid-bay yesterday and the Inlet late in the day. The surf was good in the afternoon too on both bait and lures. Blake and I went out for a couple hours last night looking for bass, only pulled blues. I pushed back out in the morning and went on the search but couldn’t find bass. Stumbled on some small packs of bunker deep. Snagged a couple but no takers. Ended up trolling around for an hour or so then resorted to Plan B, the Inlet. Hammered the blues on lures. Among the mediums, I managed to get a couple good size teen gators fishing an extra large pencil popper. The schools of blues racing around the popper and the hooked fish was cool.
Fluke…
They are here! Ed Sisson was recently fishing the surf and had his bunker chunk inhaled by a 22″ fluke. It must have hurt to let it go!
On the fluke front, we’ve got a lot of emails and calls asking about the fluke regulations. After this past weeks fluke meeting, the NJDEP Commissioner Bob Martin approved, the measures for NJ’s recreational summer flounder fishery. There’s only one speed bump or potential brick wall, the Commerce Department, but a little birdie says they aren’t planning on stopping it. So here it is, as confirmed via email from the NJ Fish & Wildlife email…
The 2017 NJ Summer Flounder “Fluke” Recreational Regulations…
For all NJ coastal waters:
18-inch minimum size limit
3-fish possession limit
Open season May 25 through September 5
For Delaware Bay and tributaries:
17-inch minimum size limit
3-fish possession limit
Open season May 25 through September 5
For Island Beach State Park (Shore Mode only)
16-inch minimum size limit
2-fish possession limit
Open season May 25 through September 5
