609-494-5739 Just because many have left LBI and Barnegat Bay for the year, the fish do not subscribe to our calendar. With falling temps, shorter days the baitfish are getting ready to push out of the bay and head south. The bay is under 70 @ 69 for the first times in months. Predators with be hot on their tails, get it?? Mullet have started to school and my prediction lots will exit the bay on the next moon. Peanut bunker will follow a few weeks later. And man o man, the bay is loaded with nuts. Fluke season has a few days left. Fluking has been tough lately because of water clarity. The last hurricane swell dirtied up the water. Plenty of nice size weaks around if you chum grass shrimp. They should get easier to target with live nuts on a three-way floating jig head rig. Schoolie bas are already dialed in in the marsh. Had lots blowing up on bait my last two times I targeted them. I’s only going to get better. Inlet holding some keeper bass but big live baits needed. Some monster blues showed up, 8-10 lb. plus variety. These are what I like to call “mullet run” blues. Historically they showed up like clockwork this time of year. Not so much in years past. I just got news from an extremely reliable source of some croaker on steroids of the beach. Still trying to get what depth. Been years since we had a good run of hard heads. Great eating but can be a little boney.
On the nature side of things: before technology birds were tracked by netting and putting legs bands on. The only way to know where they went is when they were recaptured. Not the best success rates. Plus there were lots of data gaps. For example, where were they in between. Now a days gps tracking devices have come into play. The artic tern was always known to be the longest distance flyer doing a 25,000 mile round trip in the Atlantic. But that was not thinking out of the box and making a poor assumption that it flew in a straight line while spending about ten months over the open ocean. And it weighs only 4.2 ounces. Recently, a tracked tern did 42,000 miles in one year as if zig zagged while travel for the south reaches of the southern hemisphere to the far reaches of the northern hemisphere. Isn’t nature amazing.
Now retired and guiding full time, one of the only full time local guides, I have lots of dates available and often available for last minute bookings. It is still best to schedule a dates. Fishing is good to great and only getting better.
Screaming drags,
Capt. Alex
Lighthouse Sportfishing
609-548-25122
