609-494-5739 As the unofficial end to summer passes, we are in what some think as a transitional month for the local fisheries. IMO, there is nothing transitional about it. Fluking remains strong with the best catches inside coming around high tide and in the ocean when the conditions are more favorable for ocean fluking. Blues from a pound to four pounds are cruising the inlet and jetty haunts and can pop up at any time chasing rainfish (bay anchovies). Speaking of rainfish, the amount of rainfish in and around the inlet is like the flood gates opened up and rained fish. LOL. Schoolie bass are still making a showing with the low light conditions more favorable, but I have been able to put my clients on a bass or two during most trips recently. Weakfish are around in enough numbers to target and while fishing for weaks you are bound to catch a few other species of fish. Anchor in the bay and let out some clam chum and your rods will contently be bent with species like blowfish, smooth dogfish, baby sea bass, kingfish, snappers, and more. Intel speaks of false albacore and Spanish macks real close (a few miles off) to the inlet. Will let you know if I get a chance or have a trip wanting to chance down those speedsters. Attached are two pictures from recent trips, kids and fishing. Gotta love it! I’m presently running trips full time, so I am available to fish when you are. So if you’re thinking about going fishing give me a call. Also with so many dolphins around, if you want to go for an ecotour give me a call.
On the nature side of things: lots of brown pelicans around lately, maybe the most ever. Being an avid birder, naturalist, and citizen scientist, I kind of keep track of birds sightings amongst other things. Things such as when and where a bird is seen, and how many. APPs such as EBird run by Cornell University allows citizen scientists to record their bird sightings into a global database. There are literally thousands, if not tens of thousands of sightings, reported and put into the EBird database every single day. Data that years ago took scientists years to collect, is now being collected every minute of every day thanks to technology and citizen scientists. So back to brown pelicans in our area. Over the last two decades, the frequency and the number of brown pelicans in our area have been on the rise. Thirty years ago they were a southern species and very rare to see in Ocean County. As our climate changes, some animals take advantage, or one may say benefit, from such changes. Brown pelican being one. A few years ago they started nesting in the Chesapeake Bay, the furthest north ever recorded. Will they one day nest in Ocean County? Only time will tell and only Mother Nature knows…..
Screaming Drags,
Capt Alex
609-548-2511
Lighthouse Sportfishing
