Friday Dec 11, Sat Dec 12, Sun Dec 13, and Mon Dec 14. This might be the last dates we offer for 2020. It will be a wait and see for next weekend.
Tomorrow, Friday Dec 11, we are on a 10AM to 3PM schedule fishing live bait in the inlet. This is a mix of stripers from 23 to 30 inches. We have bonus tags to keep the 24 to 28 inch slot fish. A lot of action right now. We were out Tuesday and had constant action. Multiple hookups on every drift. We could do a few hours of that and if the ocean looks nice we could sneak outside to try and troll some bigger fish for the cooler….or not!
Saturday, Sunday, and Monday we will be sailing 7AM to 3PM if we are ocean bound or inlet/ocean combo.If we are going to just fish live bait in the inlet, we can customize our trip hours around the tide and weather.
5 hour Inlet Trip $700 for Private Charter, includes live bait. 8 hour Ocean or Inlet/Ocean Trip $900 for Private Charter or Open Boat $225 person, 4 people max, all fish are shared.
Pic: Capt Nick DeGennaro with one of our livelined bass in the inlet Tuesday.
Forget what’s going on outside your window Friday and Saturday. It’s going to be very wet and windy. Southerly, then northeast. Then, Saturday afternoon, it swings to NW……..the best wind for fishing and sea conditions. And it’s staying NW forever! Ok, maybe not forever but it’s forecasted through Wednesday at least. Striper fishing is excellent right now. We have been connecting with 10 to 30 lb fish on the troll and most recently casting soft plastics. Sandeel imitations are doing the best. You do have to endure quite a few dogfish but there is just as many bass. Also, a few very fat, gorged bluefish in the mix.
We are going to be sailing Open Boat and Charter Sunday, December 6 through Wednesday, December 9.
6AM to 2PM each day. $225 person, 4 people max, all fish are shared.
It’s also possible to run for the near shore bluefin, 15 to 20 mile range. Three man charters at $1,200 for the boat. 6AM to 4PM. It is possible to combine striper fishing with this trip, as well. If you haven’t tried this fall tuna fishing before, it’s a lot of work. A lot of casting for maybe only a few or no hook ups. I’m not trying to tell you not to try it, hooking a tuna on a surface lure is one of the coolest things you will ever see. Throw in some whales, porpoise, and 50 to 100 pound bluefin crashing bait right in front of you and that alone is worth the price of admission. I just want to be candid about your chances of hooking up.
See you on board!
All of these pics were taken last Sat and Sun of Thanksgiving weekend and all were caught casting soft plastics with light spinning gear. Jake and Zach Milone of Wall, NJ (Zach in orange with black knees, Jake with black/white striped hat)Dave Flood of Mantua, NJ (Grey jacket, Carhart hat)Mike Viviano of Galloway, NJ (Green jacket)Herman Diaz of Waretown, NJ (Brown pants, grey jacket)
Dave
Dave DeGennaro Hi Flier Sportfishing 732.330.5674 cell hi flier.com
The stripers are here and we are running Open Boat or Charters every day from Thanksgiving Thursday thru Monday, November 30.
The fish are ranging in size from 8 to 20 plus pounds. Most are in the 24′ to 28″ slot with quite a few hitting the bigger slot between 28″ to 38″. Most of our success has been on the troll but every trip we try casting lures and we are catching a few that way. Mostly on swimming plugs and sandeel imitations. We are also catching some bass in the inlet on live spots if the ocean is too sporty to get out. If we get a calm ocean it is also possible to hunt for the bluefin tuna that are within 5 to 10 miles of our inlet. This is mostly run and gun fishing casting poppers to 50 to 150 lb fish that are skying out of the water. They are not easy to fool, there’s a lot more watching than catching but it is something to see. It is possible to start with this and then shoot inshore to target stripers in the same trip. Sailing Thanksgiving (Thursday), Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, November 26, 27, 28, 29 30.Open Boat or Charter. 6AM to 2PM. $225 person. 4 people max. All fish are shared. Call to reserve a date.The best way to book a trip is to call me as I spend most of my time on the water. Hope you all have a great Thanksgiving with friends and family! Pics: Joe DelRossi of Medford, NJ with a striper that hit a cast and retrieve sandeel imitation by Savage Mike Fuhrman of Cherry Hill, NJ with a striper that hit an umbrella rig (wearing yellow jacket)
Game on! The stripers are on the move….and the chew!
Anywhere from Island Beach to Long Branch, we are catching 10 to 30 lb class fish. Mostly on the troll but now there are more bird piles with surfacing fish moving through so we will be doing more casting and jigging.
Sailing Open Boat or Charter: Saturday Nov 21 and Sunday Nov 22. Saturday, the marine forecast looks great with a west wind allowing us to cruise the shoreline until we find the life. Sunday is iffy, as a stiff NE wind is forecasted. If they’re wrong or they modify the forecast, we’ll be back on the prowl up the coast. If it stays like it is, we can fish the inlet for stripers with live bait.
Saturday, Nov 21 6AM to 2PM $225 person, 4 people max, all fish are shared.
Sunday, Nov 22 6AM to 2PM $225 person, 4 people max, all fish are shared if we can fish the ocean or if we fish the inlet 9AM to 2PM $175 person, 4 people max, all fish are shared.
Pics:
Henry Moyer of Reading, PA with 41 inch bass that was released (Hat with red ball on top)
Charles Avila of PA with bluefish and striper (Blue jacket)
Dave Flood of Mantua, NJ with striper (Grey sweatshirt, orange slickers)
Really good striper fishing right now. Everything from 5 to 40 pound fish. Trolling, snagging, jigging, and casting are all producing fish. Saturday and Sunday we had to troll to put 10 to a dozen fish in the boat, keeping six each day with our bonus tags in play. We did catch a few casting swimming plugs to swirling bass. On Monday we broke the inlet at 4:30 AM and had the lines in before sun up on the hunt for near shore bluefin. Only five miles offshore we trolled for two hours in the exact spot friends of ours had visual fish skying out of the water on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Never saw a tuna. Lots of stripers. In fact they were crashing our side tracker bars at tuna speed. Had enough of that, so we headed to the Mud Hole to try chunking. Nothing, no readings, no birds, so I didn’t even anchor. I was getting ready to head back towards home when I noticed a cluster of wrecks on my chartplotter. Not being a good wreck captain, I thought maybe with this many so close together, even I could accidentally put the boat over one. I decided to try drift jigging. The drift was perfect and we hovered over the structure drift after drift. All the sea bass were shorts but we caught a ton of huge porgies. Got dinner out of the deal anyway. Sunday looks like a southerly blowout, but Saturday and Monday look really good as both have NW and west winds forecasted. Sailing Open Boat or Charter Saturday Nov 14 and Monday Nov 16 6AM to 2PM. $225 person, 4 person max, all fish are shared. Available Tues thru Fri for Striper Charters departing at 10AM. Pics: Ross Leahy of Fanwood, NJ with a trio of stripers that crushed one of our custom made umbrella rigs.
Capt. Nick DeGennaro in black sweatshirt with porgy
Dave Flood of Mantua, NJ in orange slickers with porgy
We have a great stretch of weather coming up this weekend. Light and variable winds along with comfortable temperatures in the 60’s.
We are going to run either Open Boat or Charter: Sunday Nov 8, and Monday Nov 9. The boat is already booked on Sat Nov 7. There is a great striper bite going on up north. Early morning you can jig or cast lures. Once the boat pressure gets to be too heavy you have to find your own fish or troll. Anything from 10 to 40 pound fish. Capt Nick DeGennaro ran the Hi Flier to those northern grounds yesterday (Wednesday) and had a slow start but a really good finish, boating 11 bass from 12 to 40 pounds. They were able to catch them on topwater lures and jigs. We have to run a good deal north so I would suggest meeting at the boat at 4:00 AM for the best shot at jigging and casting. 4AM to 2PM, $225 person, 4 people max, all fish are shared.
The marine forecast is good enough to head to the Triple Wrecks in search of tuna but I don’t have any recent reports. Just throwing it out there for those of you that want “one more shot”. If we run there and there’s no tuna, there’s not a lot of Plan B. I would consider running another 20 miles into the Hudson Canyon for tilefish, but the weather and sea condition would have to be mint. 5AM to 5PM, $450 person, 4 people max, all fish are shared.
We could also anchor up in the Mud Hole and try chunking for bluefin, again, no reports from here that I know of, just a likely time of year to try. Look for some readings on the machine, anchor up, start chunking, and put out some live baits. Just now heard of some surface bluefin about 10 miles offshore. This is a different game. A lot of fish airing out, very exciting, but tough to get them to eat. We have the spinning outfits and topwater lures to throw if anyone wants to try. We can combine either of these tuna efforts with the striper fishing. We would have to start with the tuna as we can not be in possession of any stripers beyond the 3 mile line. 5AM to 5PM $1,500 for the boat or Open Boat $375 per person if we run to the Mud Hole to chunk and then striper fish, $1,200 for the boat or Open Boat $300 per person if we cast at surface tuna and then striper fish. Both trips are 4 people max, all fish are shared. Keep in mind the tuna fishing is only an option, we can just go striper fishing at the hours and rates described above.
I am game for any of these trips on either day, Sunday or Monday, majority rules, Stripers, Tuna, or Stripers/Tuna combo. The best way to reach me is on my cell. You can call right up until “go time” to get a spot.
Wed,Thurs,Fri Nov 11, 12, and 13, we will be running 11AM to 4PM striper trips in the inlet. These are mostly 20 to 28 inch fish on light spinning tackle. We could also buy live spots and catch them on conventional tackle.
Pics: Bill Howard of Egg Harbor Twp, NJ in white slickers
Max DeGennaro of Barnegat, NJ in black hat and jacket
Capt Nick DeGennaro of Barnegat, NJ in blue camo pants
Mike Frezza of Tuckerton, NJ in blue and orange jacket
It is a crazy time of year. Mid October will make your head spin with options. We are still a little south of the striper migration but there are plenty of other options while we wait one more week for the bass to be in our range.
We are still catching blowfish in the bay and casting lures at 2 to 6 pound bluefish in the inlet.
The ocean options include big gator blues on jigs, chumming bonita and albacore at Barnegat Ridge, or depending on which way the offshore forecast goes for Sunday and Monday there are still tuna to catch in the 70 to 80 mile range. We could do any of these trips. I am going to leave it to you guys and go with the majority of interest.
Sailing Open Boat or Charter Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, October 17, 18, and 19. Call for info and rates.
Pic: Max DeGennaro with bluefish at the inlet jetty.
There was one good weather day over the weekend, so we headed to the Triple Wrecks on Saturday where the never ending yellowfin tuna bite has been going on. I delayed our departure to 4AM as not to hit the last of the outgoing tide into any residual swell coming in against it. That scenario in the daylight can be ominous enough, I don’t risk it at night. We broke the inlet by 5AM and made it to the grounds by 8AM. The radio was alive with chatter of guys with their fish boxes full already. I wasn’t panicking, I was just going to make some drifts and do our thing. We couldn’t buy a hit. I even dropped to 30 lb fluorocarbon leader just to try and get a bite. Finally at 11AM one of our guys hooks up on a 200 gram Nomad Streaker jig. He fights him for 20 minutes and the hook pulls. I up the leaders to 40 lb and in the next few hours we go 2 for 6 on big yellowfins. Managed to boat a 75 and 80 pounder. Both hit live spots on weighted lines while we drifted the whales. So while we didn’t hold our own, we couldn’t have been happier with the two fish on ice. Both were epic battles on 50 class. Here is a video of Matt Tengi’s 75 pound yellowfin:
It’s a long clip, around 13 minutes, so you might want to do some fast forwarding. I don’t know how to edit them down, yet, and honestly when I started recording, I thought we were at the end of the battle.
Sailing Open Boat to Barnegat Ridge this Friday, October 9, 10AM to 6PM. Bonita and albacore on light tackle. We’re going to anchor up and chum. I am expecting other visitors to our slick but I don’t want to jinx it. $250 person, 4 people max, all fish are shared. Call me on my cell to reserve a spot. You can call right up until “go time”. Pics:
Tim Walton of Abington, PA with dark shirt (Capt Nick DeGennaro in slickers)
Matt Tengi of Pequannock, NJ with white shirt (Capt Nick DeGennaro in slickers)
Sashimi platter made from tuna at Makoto Japanese restaurant in Manahawkin. Wow!
Hi Flier Sportfishing 732.330.5674 cell hiflier.com
Monday, October 5, could be the same as above, or if the forecast stays the same, calling for flat calm conditions, we could head to the canyon first for an extended trip that starts at 11PM Sunday night and returns around 6 PM on Monday. We would mix in some tilefish and canyon troll before heading to the tuna chunking grounds. This extended trip would be $550 person, 4 people max.
All fish are shared on our Open Boat trips. The boat is also available for private charter on these days.
Yesterday, Thursday, the plan came together. The marine forecast was for calm seas and light winds. The boat was packed to the brim with pre-cut chunks, buckets of freshly netted peanut bunker, a livewell full of spots and peanuts, 400 lbs of ice, 30 extra gallons of fuel in portable plastic tanks, and 29 rods already rigged for their specific purpose. Usually being this prepared and having the perfect forecast is the kiss of death….but not this time.
We threw the ropes at 2AM and set out for the Hudson Canyon. A short time into our troll, we stumbled on some lobster pots. Our first pass with the spread of bigger tuna lures produced two nice mahi so we decided to reel in and have some fun casting bait at the hifliers with lighter spinning tackle. We boxed 33 mahi in a few hours between 5 and 12 pounds. It was hard to stop fishing for them but we had an agenda. Next up, was Golden Tilefish. I had some good numbers on where to catch some bigger fish so we went on the drift in 450 feet of water where we boxed 11 fish between 8 and 15 pounds, My son, Nick’s, biggest to date. Last stop was the Triple Wrecks, where the Yellowfin bite has been happening for two months now. We did a slow jog through the fleet, just prospecting, and two of our crew pointed out some fish breaking water. I was sure they must have seen porpoise or skippies but with nothing better going on we headed in that direction where 50 to 80 lb Yellowfin Tuna were airing out. Nick grabbed his popping rod, like he has done so many times before, and on his third cast, his Madd Mantis popper got “whoofed” and he was tight for the first time ever on his popping rod! Fifteen minutes later, a 50 plus pound tuna hit the deck and all was right with the world. Congatulations Nick! I am so glad it happened on our own boat and that I was there to see it. This kid puts in countless hours of prep and then deck work only to help other people hook up. Customers, friends, family, he always makes their experience a priority over his own. He loves doing it but I know he is always waiting to be the guy on the rod. Here is the end game of his tuna:
We chunked for a little while and broke off two big Yellowfins on 40 lb flourocarbon leader. It’s what you have to do to get the bite but sometimes it costs you during the fight.
It was an epic day with Hi Flier crew Dave Flood from Mantua, NJ, Ray Wetzel from Kenilworth, NJ, Kevin DePaola from Brick, NJ, both who are old high school friends, and my son Nick.
Available for charter on Monday, September 28 for back bay weakfish, blowfish, light tackle grass shrimp and shedder crab mixed bag fishing. Dave DeGennaroBack
