The messy weather is already gone and the wind has switched to hard west. Then it’s going NW, which is our best wind for Fall stripers. All that W/NW wind should help flatten out the ocean to make for a comfortable few days of chasing stripers. The velocity is up, 15 to 25 mph, but the harder it blows, the flatter it gets, for the first 1 to 2 miles offshore, anyway. Which is all we need as the fish have been closer than that to the beach, so far.
We will be running Open Boat Stripers: Sunday Nov 13 and Mon Nov 14. 6AM to 2PM. $275 person. 4 people max. All fish are shared. These dates are also available for your private charter.
We will be ready to snag bunker, cast lures, or troll. Whatever it takes to put fish in the boat.
Pics are from last weekend’s fish that we caught very close to home. Pics: Dave Flood of Mantua, NJ in brown camo shirt
The weather looks good for the upcoming weekend. Wind is moderate, not thrilled about the southerly direction, but the velocity is reasonable, and the traditional weather forecast has temps into the high 60’s. Not bad for November.
Running Open Boat Sat and Sun, Nov 5 and 6, 7AM to 3PM. $300 person, 4 people max, all fish are shared.
We will be ready to snag bunker, cast plugs and soft plastics, jig, or troll if we have to. There is a good mix of size right now so we should be able to get some under 38″ fish in the cooler.
Here are two short video clips from our epic day at the canyon on Monday: https://youtu.be/joalOTWOzXY and https://youtu.be/CRVbylc1B4A We broke the inlet in the dark around 3AM, arrived on the grounds at 7AM, looked around for a while and found a spot to make our first drift by 7:30 AM. Set up three rods for chunking and bait fishing. By the time the third rod was set, the second rod was already screaming. Set up on that fish and the bow rod goes off, two on! I was clearing the third rod and reeling fast as not to tangle one of the two hooked fish and a big yellowfin hit this squid on the retrieve like a train…..three on! It went like that for three hours. One drift over a mile and a half. We went 9 for 11 on 70 to 90 plus pound yellowfins. Back to the dock by 3:30 PM.
Inshore there are miles of bunker pods up and down the beach from Belmar to Barnegat Inlet. There are 30 to 40 plus pound stripers, whales, and big bluefin tuna on their heels. We plan on leaving early this Sat, Sun, and Mon, Oct 15-16-17 to get on these pods and pursue both the bass and the tuna. I will have the rods and gear for both on board. The rods are stand up 80 class, so we won’t be fighting them from the rod holder if we are fortunate enough to connect with a bluefin. It will be a belt and harness stand up fight. I had these combos built over the winter just for this fishery. We are going to jump from pod to pod looking for the bunker that have some tuna on them. Live bait fishing will be the primary tactic but I will have the heavy popping rods on board, as well. The focus is going to be on tuna with the stripers being our secondary effort, so I don’t want to mislead anyone. Also, our chances of hooking one of these tuna is not great. Sometimes they won’t even look at what you are offering. But there have been some caught off these bunker pods already, so I want to give it our best shot. Anything over 73 inches has to be released. There have been a few in the 150 to 200 lb class mixed in with the giants, that would be best case scenario, as we could actually take one of those. This is a risky trip, it’s not for everyone. When you pursue quality, that’s the risk. There’s a good chance we never hook a tuna and come back with an empty fish box, as almost all of the stripers are over the 38 inch mark, and the regulations say we have to release those fish. The upside: being in the presence of whales is always a humbling experience, catch and release on big stripers is a lot of fun, and just watching bluefin air out on bait makes you say “Whoaaa!” every single time.
$350 person, all fish are shared (if there are any), 4 people max. Sat Oct 15, Sun Oct 16, and Mon Oct 17, 5AM to 3PM. These dates are also available for charter. If you would like to book a trip for just stripers, we could talk about that, as well.
Pics: Jeff Frazier of Toms River holding tuna vertical and with the bent rod.
This is the kind of weather and fishing report you need to react to. There are big yellowfin tuna offshore. We have to run 70 to 80 miles but the fishing is really good. Bait fishing, we shouldn’t have to troll. Leaving at 4AM tomorrow, Monday Oct 10, returning late afternoon or early evening. $450 person. 4 people max. All fish are shared. This is short notice, so call me on my cell 732.330.5674, rather than email.
The bay fishing has been excellent. We are anchoring up and chumming with live grass shrimp. Catching anywhere from 7 to 10 different species, but the target is always weakfish. Lots of action on ultralite spinning gear. The water temperature dropped from 71.5 to 63 degrees in just a weeks time but the fish are still holding and aggressively hitting our bait and lures. Strike now while it’s hot. I am hoping we roll into mid October with this fishery but it’s always a wait and see.
The bluefish are still in good numbers at the inlet and are attacking the lures we are throwing, usually soft plastics. Mostly 2 to 4 pound fish, big enough to scream line off of our 10 pound spinning outfits. We are catching big blowfish on the west side of the bay. Chumming with clam chum and using both clams and squid as hookbaits. There are enough jumbos to catch to let the small ones go. Fun to catch and delicious to eat!
Sailing every day for this mixed bag in the bay and inlet: Tues thru Fri 10AM to 3PM Sat, Sun, and Mon’s 7AM to Noon
The long range marine forecast looks good for Sat Oct 1 and Sun Oct 2 right now. It’s a little early to be planning offshore trips for those days but if they are right and the forecast holds up, we will be running Open Boat or Charter for tuna, bonita, albies…..whatever looks good. Stand by! Departure times will be somewhere around 5AM to 6AM and duration of the trip between 8 to 12 hours. These dates are also available for the mixed bag bay charters.
Barnegat Bay is on fire. We are consistently catching weakfish on all our live grass shrimping trips. If you have never tried this, it is something to see. Before each trip we pick up a large quantity of live grass shrimp. We head over to Barnegat Light, anchor up, and continuously throw over small handfuls of shrimp. Then we bait up our hooks and small jigs, really small, like 1/16 and 1/32 oz jigs, with shrimp. The hook gets loaded up with six or seven shrimp, the jigs only need two poked through the head. We are usually fishing in 10 to 15 feet of water. We pin the bobber a few feet less than the depth of the water from the baited hook, so if we are in 12 feet of water, we put the bobber 10 feet up from the hook. The jigs we drop straight down to the bottom or flip them out and slow retrieve them back to the boat. The weakies have been 12 to 17 inches. The variety you catch in the shrimp slick is what makes it so much fun. That, and the arsenal we use is made up of six pound spinning outfits, more akin to gear you would use on a trout stream. The variety of species we have been catching includes weakfish, fluke, kingfish, spots, blues, blowfish, hickory shad, sea robins, sand sharks, silver perch, croakers, blue runners and more. All spots become property of the Hi Flier, we pen them up for live bait for tuna and stripers. We are also anchoring up on the west side of the bay and hammering away at jumbo blowfish. They are fun to catch and delicious to eat!I”ll clean the first 20, the rest you take whole.
The inlet has been giving up 2 to 4 pound blues very consistently. We are casting soft plastics on 3/8 oz jigheads. We have not been getting any bass in the mix recently but they will start soon. We keep it light with this fishery, too, 10 pound spinning outfits.
It is possible to combine any or all of these fisheries in a single trip. It’s all peaking right now, so strike while the iron is hot. It should roll into the first or second week of October if recent history is any indication. The messy weather coming is the perfect time to try this fishery. We fish in very protected water. 20 to 25 knots of wind is no problem.
Available for charter Tues thru Fri 10AM to 3PM or Sat, Sun, and Mon’s 7AM to Noon. When the weather and sea condition relents we will start running offshore again. Until then, this exciting Plan B becomes Plan A!
I love tuna fishing! Just had to get that out of the way. When the fish are there and we can catch them on bait and jigs, I don’t know if there is any fishery more exciting. I especially love day chunking on the midrange grounds. That’s exactly what we did on Monday, Labor Day. Headed north to chase a report that my first mate (and son) received from his friend at 4AM as we were leaving the slip. Got to the spot early, had good bait and fish readings, but the first runoff did not come until 9:30AM. I set the circle hook up and he screamed line for 10 seconds and then came unbuttoned. We reeled in an empty hook. Sucks, but really the only acceptable loss in the fishing game. Everything else is human error. Ten minutes later, the same rod goes off, a flatlined sardine, and this time we stay stuck. Twenty minutes later a 60 pound bluefin hits the deck. Over the next few hours we went four for six on 40 to 60 pound fish, all on bait, except for one that hit Chris Mace’s jig, christening his new spinning outfit that was made for the task. Caught them all on our AVET LX arsenal instead of the big gold reels. So much more fun on the 30 class conventionals. We started with 30 lb flouro leader but bumped up to 40 as they were so aggressive. When we cut the fish at the dock, they had our chunks in them, so that justified that effort. Of course the weather is going to prevent us from returning anytime soon but we are all hoping that they stay put for a while. This northeast should push even nicer water in. Here is a clip of Igor Sapiga decking that first bluefin: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0NQ7O1Pdyno
We are still hammering away at the weakfish and the ultralite buffet in Barnegat Bay. Wed, Thurs, and Fri’s 10AM to 3PM.
The bonita and albacore reports are also very strong so we will be running those trips, as well. Trolling to find them and then setting up a spearing slick to chum them up and catch them on spinning tackle.
My head is spinning right now from the choices. This is a great time of year coming up.
Running Open Boat Tuna this Monday, Labor Day, Sept 5, 3AM to 5PM. Good chance we will mix in Tilefish and Mahi where we are headed. $450 person, 4 people max, all fish are shared. Call to reserve a spot, phone is better than text or email.
I cancelled our Saturday trip last night as that NE wind did not drop out early enough to make for a good sea condition. Monday looks like it will be really nice. The boats we network with caught big yellowfin there yesterday and we will have the benefit of information from all the boats sailing Sunday.
Tues Sept 6 and Wed Sept 7 we are available for charter only to fish for weakfish and a bunch of other species on ultralite tackle in the bay 10AM to 3PM.
So our bonita/albacore trip sucked last week. Ran 26 miles north to where the bite had been good for a few weeks just to hear the “What happened?” chatter on the radio. We eeked out one nice bonita on bait and that was that. The only good thing that happened was I broke in one of the six new Fish Head rods I just acquired from Fishermans Headquarters on that fish, and they are awesome! Flexible enough to enjoy the fight but has enough backbone to control the fish. Love them! Paired with 5000 spinning reels, these are going to be our “everything” outfits. Bonita, albies, mahi, stripers, blues and anything else that shows up.
We are crushing the weakfish and big blowfish in Barnegat Bay. All on six pound ultralite rods. The weakies are ranging from 11 to 18 inches, with most in the 13 to 15 inch range. We are available for your private charter for these trips Fri Sept 2, 5, 6, and 7.
We have been laying low on the tuna trips because, frankly, we were not scoring. It’s been a tricky season. SO, I do what most boats in my size class do (25 ft), we wait and watch the marine weather, and wait, and watch, sometimes we watch and wait, and then BAM! The weather window is there and I have some good intel from a friend who just got back from a good yellowfin trip. So we are headed east in search of the bite. Should be mostly bait and jigs. I will have the trolling gear on board but I am hoping not to use it unless we are scouting. Saturday Sept 3, 3AM to 5PM, $450 person, 4 people max, all fish are shared. We need to fill all 4 spots to sail. The boat is also available for charter for this day, but only for tuna. I need a shot of blue water once and a while to stay sane. Saturday is that day. Call to reserve a spot, that is the best way to get me. Hope to see you on board, Dave Dave DeGennaro Hi Flier Sportfishing
It looks like a really nice marine forecast coming up for the weekend, light winds, and calm seas, so we are headed offshore to target bonita, albacore, and whatever else we could coax into our slick. I am loaded with fresh spearing, and that is the key into getting them around the boat. We are going to anchor up and fish them with bait and jigs on light tackle. Sailing Open Boat or Charter: Sat Aug 27 and Sun Aug 28, 5AM to 1PM, $325 person, 4 people max, all fish are shared. The boat is also available for charter on either of these days for inshore or offshore.
We have been doing really well catching weakfish in the bay on live grass shrimp. They are anywhere from 11 to 17 inchers. Also in the mix are blowfish, hickory shad, snapper blues, spots, sand sharks, kingfish, fluke, and more. Constant action on the six pound ultralite outfits. I am available Tues Aug 30, Wed Aug 31, Thurs Sept 1, and Fri Sept 2, 10AM to 3PM for these trips. Charter only, not Open Boat on these trips. There are also sharks to catch just a few miles outside the inlet. Two to three foot Atlantic Sharpnose and Spinner sharks along with 125 to 150 lb Brown Sharks. This could be combined with the bay fishing as well.
Pics:Baxter Thomas of Summit NJ in the red life vest putting the boots to a 130 lb class Brown Shark on 30 class conventional tackle.
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