609-494-5739 The summer pattern has prevailed this week on Barnegat Bay and if you have ever studied about pattern fishing you will catch fish every time. Well almost….. Hard afternoon southerlies have made fishing down right difficult. Around the inlet short to keeper bass are still available for those willing to leave the morning coffee brewing. If you know what I am saying. I have had some great sessions throwing BKDs and even had one of my client’s box a bass in between the shorts and blues. The bluefish that I have encountered are all over the place when it comes to size. You land a two pounder, then one around 10 pounds, then another around four. Not complaining, my trips have been a lot of fun with light tackle. I have found the fluke bite still hot when you catch the right tide at the right place. I am talking 10 or more fish an hour. Lots of shorts but enough fillets for a dinner or two. Can’t remember when I have seen this many small fluke this early on. I’m talking 12” and under. In most of the years past, I have seen countless small fluke close to the inlet come August, not now. Crabbing in my neck of the woods, or should I say Bay, remains solid.
On the nature side of things: I spent an afternoon this week with Ben Wurst from Conserve Wildlife Foundation of NJ and another volunteer surveying Osprey nests on the western part of Barnegat Bay from Barnegat to the Causeway. This was some super cool stuff. The kind of stuff I dreamt about doing when I was a kid. The mission was to do a census of young ospreys. Those that were old enough to be banded were. Those that were too young will get banded in the near future. The nests ranged from no sign of eggs or chicks to three pretty big chicks. At one nest, when Ben climbed up to check it he got to witness a chick just starting to poke its head out of the shell. Going to switch it up and attach some pictures from the Osprey survey instead of fishing. While going from nest to nest it was amazing to see how many schools of very small peanut bunker there were. Hopefully, that sets the tone for the fall run. I have a busy schedule already for the week ahead but there are still a few prime time open if you are looking to get out. Also, once the water temp off the beach stabilizes I will before offering again off the beach sharking trips (just off the breakers to five miles out). The typical action on one of these trips is multiple hook-ups with hard fighting sharks in the 40-80 pound class. I use 7′ Okuma Pez Vela rods with matching 30-pound class conventional reels. These outfits were designed for pitching baits to Pacific Sailfish making them a perfect fit for inshore sharking. If this kind of trip interests you give me a call and before you know it you may here click, click, clickkkkkkkkkkkkk shark on!
Living the dream,
Capt. Alex 609-548-2511
