Just got back from Key West. Had my two boys, Nick, 19 and Max, 17 down there to catch their first permit. Found the best captain down there, Capt Jason Wells from Reel Easy Charters 305.906.2076. So impressed by this guy. Laid back, focused,….and persistent. The key to catching permit down there is to have crabs for bait. The whole island was sold out but he had a call out to a shop that was going to call us if any came in. We were already on the fishing grounds when the call came in and he had us reel in and motor back to get live crabs. Not too many guides would burn the fuel or put in the time to do this. It paid off as we caught four nice permit in the two hours after we returned to the grounds. We also had two big snook, a 17 and 18 pounder that Max and I took on live pinfish in the early morning out on a wreck in the Atlantic. I didn’t even know you could catch them there, I thought they were a backwater or near shoreline fish. We had some big mangrove snappers, yellowtails, barracuda, a black grouper, a bunch of Spanish mackerel and one good size king mackerel for the two days we spent with Capt Jason. Here’s Nick DeGennaro with his first permit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UW4UyLwExXk and Max DeGennaro with his: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNrHwSdVOkY
Back to NJ fishing now. I have inshore charters booked for this Fri, Sat, and Sun, June 29, 30, and July 1. We will target the blues and short stripers in the inlet, fluke in the bay, and I picked up some live shedder crabs to see what I could get going in the back bay. Hoping to find some weakfish or kingfish.
Monday, July 2 and Wednesday, July 4 we are available for Open Boat or charter. If the weather is perfect we will be looking to run offshore to the tuna grounds on either or both days. Could be Yellowfin or Bluefin….or both! Looking for light and variable winds and no threat of storms. That’s the only forecast I go on. We have a Garmin Sirius/XM satellite weather station on board to monitor any storm activity as well. $300 person if we run to the 50 to 60 mile grounds, $350 person if we run all the way to the canyons. The shorter run is usually a 4AM to 4PM trip and the longer run would be 2AM to 4PM. Something you should know, and I repeat this a lot as I don’t want anyone to be disappointed, if you want a better chance at sailing for tuna, you should book a bigger boat that will sail in sea conditions that we will not. Three to four foot seas is not much of a sea in those bigger sportfishermen, but I am looking for flat calm or 1 to 2’s at most to go that distance in a 25 ft boat. Mind you, it’s a very capable World Cat catamaran with brand new motors, a six man survival raft, and an EPIRB (Search and Rescue Beacon), but those are just for peace of mind, not anything we ever want to use. If you’re good with that, C’mon, C’mon!
If it looks like the weather is not good for offshore we will target inshore fishing, maybe Barnegat Ridge or inlet/bay fishing. we will be fishing for something.
Pics:
Nick DeGennaro with Capt Jason Wells and his Permit
We ran out to the Wilmington Canyon early Saturday morning. We met at the dock at 2:30 AM and threw the ropes by 3 AM. The chart plotter displayed 88 miles to our destination and I thought that’s a lot further than my Seaside Piers or Lavallette run. Ocean was flat calm and the marine forecast was for more of the same all weekend. Hoping this was going to be redemption time for last weeks zero we pulled at the Spencer Canyon.
I had a full Open Boat trip of four guys, Stuart Lombardi of NYC, Alan Smith of Manahawkin, NJ, Craig Kelley and his son-in-law Jarrett Powell both from Tuckerton, NJ. We arrived at the Wilmington around 7:30 AM and put out an eight rod spread. Three spreader bars, three squid chains, a cedar plug, and a Yummee Flying Fish I attempted to fish from a kite. There was not enough wind and the helium tank did not deliver enough gas to the assist balloon so I wound up with a whirling dervish instead of a stable square kite. It wrapped around one of the other lures and I spent the next 20 minutes untangling. When we started we had 63 degree water and some pilot whales. During my untangling, I gave the wheel to Stuart and gave him a heading to bring us deeper and more southerly. In that 20 minutes, the radio was lit up with boats hooking up yellowfin in 68 to 69 degree water. I grabbed the wheel back from Stuart and noticed the spike in water temp as well as a dozen circling boats and whales and porpoise. He brought us right to the spot!
We trolled around that area seeing and hearing boats hooked up, but not a touch for us. I started second guessing our spread, our speed, …..me. I dropped the RPM’s a little and that dropped us from 6.3 to 5.8 knots. I started checking the lures for grass as there was a little on the surface but they came in clean and alas…as I was checking the last lure we watched a yellowfin crush a rainbow spreader bar, and another hit the green machine bar, and another hit the flatlined cedar plug, and another on the second rainbow spreader bar……four on! We boated three of the four, all about 20 something pounds but over the legal size so they went in the cooler. We beat up that area some more and got a double header of slightly bigger fish and then we tripled up with a 20 pounder and two others that were taking more line and a little longer to subdue. They wound up being 40 and 50 pounders.
Here’s a video of that hookup: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65qGkX2xTII
We were all boxed up and headed for the barn feeling great about the day and about halfway home I saw schools of bluefin airing out. We put out a quick four rod spread and a 50 pound bluefin crushed the flatlined red and white cedar plug. Forty five minutes on a 20 class, Jarrett decked a 50 pound bluefin. Got back to the marina by 6:30 PM and all was right with the world.
Craig, Jarrett, Stuart, Alan
We will be running offshore to the tuna grounds from time to time. Either the canyons or hopefully the mid range grounds, like 40 to 60 mile range will heat up in the coming weeks. These trips will always be announced with short notice, sometimes only a day or two before, as we are looking for perfection weather to run offshore. If you would like to be on our email list for these and all of our trips, as well as our fishing reports you can email us from our website.
As always we will also be fishing for bonita, albacore, bluefish, stripers, weakfish, fluke, kingfish and all of the mixed bag bay fishing. We will also be light tackle shark fishing within five miles of the inlet for two to four foot browns, dusky, and spinner sharks. All catch and release and a lot of fun.
Color on a yellowfin.Stuart and Craig with our bigger yellowfins.
~Capt Dave DeGennaro, Hi Flier Sportfishing, 732.330.5674, www.hiflier.com
We ran to the Spencer Canyon on Sunday. Found the right water. Beautiful shade of blue. Tons of porpoise and whales. Skipjacks attacking our spread every 5 to 10 minutes. Caught one small bluefin tuna, not even big enough for the cooler and way too many skippies. That’s the report. We were one of the boats that didn’t catch that day.
Here’s what we’re doing in the next stretch going into the weekend. We will be running Open Boat or charter tomorrow (Thurs) and Fri, June 14 and 15 inshore fishing. Casting lures at the inlet jetty for stripers and blues with light tackle and drifting the bay channels for fluke. Leaving at Noon, returning at 5PM.
$150 person. 4 people max, all fish are shared.
Saturday, June 16, looks like the best day to run offshore, so as long as that forecast holds up, we are chasing tuna. Right now it shows no storm activity and a 1 to 2 ft sea condition. Probably headed for the canyons unless I get some good mid-range reports in the 50 to 60 mile range. The canyons we are fishing are about 85 miles. We would meet at the dock at 3AM and return around 5PM. $350 person. 4 people max, all fish are shared. If we stayed within the 60 mile range, it would be $300 person, but right now, the best reports are coming from the canyons. Yellowfin and bluefin.
Sunday, (Fathers Day!), June 17, we will be fishing inshore, same as above’s Thurs/Fri trips but we will start at 7AM and return at Noon.
My head is spinning right now. We struck out Thurs afternoon on the big striper hunt after my big rah rah speech about being there or reading about it. Turns out you didn’t need to be there and there’s nothing to read about. We trolled all afternoon without a hit, and worse, it didn’t even feel like we were going to hook up. No bait, no readings….Deadsville up and down the coast except for Raritan Bay/Sandy Hook, those guys are lighting it up and that’s a little too far of a run from Barnegat Inlet. On our way back we stopped at the Barnegat Inlet jetty to cast for some blues just to put these guys into some action and it turned out to be all stripers. Nothing legal, although we came close with a 27 1/2 incher, but a blast on the 10 pound spinning rods. That action was good enough to return yesterday (Friday), of course, we left out the trolling effort. We started out casting 2 to 4 pound blues in the inlet and then when the tide was right we switched to our striper spot and connected with three bass, 24”, 12 lbs and a 21 pounder! Here’s a clip of the 12 pounder: https://youtu.be/5PG3IfnDau0 All on light tackle and casting soft plastics. We also caught short stripers on both days behind the sod banks.
I’m going to focus on this fishing for a little while until I hear something better out front. I also picked up some shedder crabs and a flat of sandworms as I hear the south end of LBI is giving up some nice weakfish. I thought we could try our own west side of the bay here or take the run down there.
As if that’s not enough to chew on, the canyons are on fire with bluefin and yellowfin tuna. Anything from 30 to 100 plus pound fish. Now, we’re not a canyon boat, but……we can go when the weather window is really good. The World Cat is a very capable hull, we just put brand new motors on her, I have a brand new six man Viking survival raft, an EPIRB search and rescue beacon, and a Garmin/Sirius/XM weather station onboard the boat. I bought all that stuff before I bought the first gold reel. I’m not going to give any dates or advertise canyon trips because my rate of cancel would be so high on any dates we pre-book. However, feel free to check in if the marine offshore weather forecast looks really good for any Sat, Sun, or Mon.
Like it does tomorrow (Sunday)!!
Running Open Boat or Charter tomorrow (Sun) and Monday, June 10 and 11 for ?????. you tell me.
I’m game for any of it.
Pic: Capt. Nick DeGennaro with his 21 pound striper
Haven’t been out since the blow came through on Sunday. We did sail Saturday with a full boat. I had some good intel from friends up north that Deal and Long Branch were giving up nice stripers so we got an early start and made the left out of Barnegat Inlet. Thirty miles later we put the lines out and we trolled for hours without a hit. The radio echoed the same sentiment of “what happened?”. There’s nothing worse than getting there to hear that. We went as far as the Shrewsbury Rocks and then we headed back to Barnegat. Stopped at the North Barnegat Inlet jetty and did really well casting light spinning rods with soft plastics for 2 to 4 pound bluefish. Fortunately the guys I had on board were having fun doing that.
What does that mean for this week? Absolutely nothing. Whether you are new or seasoned, you have to know that the bite doesn’t stay off for long. The only way to see those epic days is to chalk up a few slower ones. Sure there are trends you can exploit if you have the luxury of being able to leave the real world behind at a moments notice, but that isn’t always the case. The reality is the fish are still here, things got screwed up by the funky weather systems for a few days and now it’s time for the next round. You can either be there or read about it.
The long term weather and marine forecast looks great. We will be fishing for stripers on the oceanside and fluke and blues in the bay if everyone wants.
Sailing Open Boat or Charter: Wed (tomorrow), Thurs, and Fri, June 6, 7, and 8, Noon to 7PM.
Sat, Sun, and Mon, June 9, 10, and 11, 6AM to 1PM. $175 person, 4 people max, all fish are shared.
Everything is provided. You can call me on my cell right up until we leave to see if there is room.
This weather is the worst. We caught a 36 pound bass Friday afternoon on a Tony Maja #4 white bunker spoon and then took it on the chin for the 11 mile ride back to the inlet in 3 to 4’s and a cranking SSE wind. The marine forecast was for a heavy SSW wind Saturday morning so I cancelled, and it turned out to be not bad at all. I kept my Sunday people coming this morning (Sunday) in spite of the forecasted storms and this time they were right, so once again I am on land. You ever been zigging when you should be zagging? Then you know what I mean. That brings us to tomorrow, Monday, Memorial Day, the last day of the holiday weekend to make things right. Once again, the forecast is on the edge, right now Buoyweather has it as: NE 11 to 15 knots subsiding to 5 to 7 knots. I’m going to take a shot at it. Leaving at 6AM returning at 1PM. If the ocean or inlet looks bad, we will fish the bay. This is a call I will make. It has nothing to do with the big stripers that are waiting for us out there. It is only about whether we can come and go through the inlet safely and not look over our shoulder for the next cresting wave while we are fishing. The crew that jumps on this trip has to be OK with Plan B which would be casting topwaters or trolling plugs for the back bay blues, drift jigging for fluke, and at 10:30 AM, anchoring up in my favorite Oyster Creek Channel spot for stripers. I don’t have any first hand or even second hand reports from that fishing but it’s the right time, water temperature, and tide to be there. Usually 10 to 15 pound fish if we could get them going. I have a bucket of beautiful shucked and salted big surf clams to feed them. My highest priority is to get out and hunt those big bass but I just want anyone to know what our Plan B is if I don’t like the way the inlet/ocean looks. For those of you who haven’t fished with me before, I make very conservative decisions when it comes to weather and sea conditions.
Here’s our latest video clip of Bill Clark’s 36 pounder we trolled on Friday afternoon: https://youtu.be/WAfVQ0EwNXM
Sailing Open Boat or Charter tomorrow, Monday, Memorial Day, May 28, 6AM to 1PM.
Wed, Thurs, and Fri, May 30, 31, and June 1, Noon to 7PM.
$175 person, 4 people max or $700 to charter the boat. Everything is provided. You can call right up until “go time” to see if there’s room.
Finally! The big bass have finally come our way. We had a 42 pounder today that crushed a big white Mojo. We were trolling off of Island Beach State Park in 63 feet of water this afternoon. Here is the YouTube clip of the end game: https://youtu.be/1nJMnukli-8 Lots of bunker pods around. Something was giving them a push at the surface. I almost reeled in the trolling gear and switched to snagging but I wanted to see if I could put another one in the cooler first and sometimes you should stay with what just worked instead of switching gears but I’m still not sure if I made the right call. After a while the bunker went down and we never got another bite. We still read big balls of bunker on the machine and a nice steady stream of big single marks right in the “kill zone” but they eat when they are ready not when we are.
Sailing every day Open Boat or Charter. Thurs (tomorrow) and Friday, May 24 and 25, Noon to 7 PM and Sat, Sun, and Mon, May 26, 27, and 28, 6 AM to 1PM. $175 person, 4 people max.
Weather looks pretty good. There are also blues in the bay if we feeling like casting for an hour or two after the bass effort.
We will be starting to run trips this weekend. The Hi Flier was just repowered with a pair of brand new 150 Suzuki Four stroke outboards. It cost us a little later start than usual but it will be well worth it to run with new power.
Sailing Open Boat or Charter Sat, Sun, and Mon, May 5, 6, and 7
for stripers and blues. We will be trying to get outside to troll bunker spoons for the big bass if the ocean is nice. If the ocean is too rough, we will anchor up with clams in the bay for the stripers and go on the hunt for the bluefish with spinning rods and surface lures. Leaving at 6AM each day. 6 hour bay trips are $600, or $150 person for Open Boat. If we get outside the inlet, the 7 hour Ocean Trip or Ocean/Bay Combo is $700, or $175 person for Open Boat. It is possible to combine the bay blues with the ocean troll if everyone wants.
The forecast is for very mild air temps and this stretch of warm weather is going to ignite all of these fisheries.
Can’t wait to start the new season and see everyone on board.
I know it’s hard to think about fishing when we are experiencing an Arctic Blast right now, but better days are coming….and soon. High temps in the 40’s and even a few days in the 50’s once we get past tomorrow (Fri) for the next week or more in the long range forecast. Along with that we have west and northwest winds dominating the marine forecast making this the longest stretch of that desirable direction all season. Calm seas and warmer temps. The stripers are still here and we are trolling them as well as casting swim shads under birds or on heavy readings. Everything from shorts to 15 pound fish in the mix. A lot of 28 to 30 inch fish now.
Sailing Open Boat or Charter Sat, Sun, and Mon, Dec 16, 17, and 18, 6:30 AM to 1:30 PM. $175 person. 4 people max. All fish are shared. We have tags to keep one slot fish per person, as well. You can call on my cell right up until the time of the trip to grab a spot. You never know.
Attached pic: Angelo Quinones of Warrington, PA with a nice pair of bass from this past Monday’s trip.
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We all knew it had to happen sooner or later. Yesterday (Thurs) afternoon we trolled our limit of 28 to 34 inch fish as well as the slot fish on umbrella rigs and Mojos. Two and a half miles due east of Barnegat Inlet. Later in the trip right after the tide started moving the gannets were hitting the water hard and concentrated. We dropped in some swim shads and retrieved them and the bass instantly responded. These were the biggest fish of the trip, as well, all 15 to 18 pound fish! That we couldn’t keep, but it was a blast to get them on the drift. I heard from a few other captains that today was another epic day. I cancelled tomorrow, (Sat) because the forecast changed to 20 knots of NE with this one day snow storm that’s passing through. Sunday and Monday look great for sea conditions so we are sailing Open Boat or Charter those days, 6AM to 1PM.
Next week we will be sailing Tues thru Thurs, Dec 12-14 9:30AM to 4:30PM and Fri thru Mon, Dec 15-18, 6AM to 1PM.
