Spring was on the mind today! What a beautiful sunny day with a high of 62 degrees. That forecast sounds more like a spring day and it felt that way on the beach. Thanks to a strong sou’wester, I enjoyed the south swell that was pumping on the Ship Bottom beach today.
While walking the beach (up current) I talked to a couple surf anglers, but notta. With the mild ocean temp and abundance of birds roaming I’m confident there’s linesiders roaming the surf.
Just a heads up… the ocean/surf is open to fishing; however the inlets, back bays and rivers are close. With the striped bass stocks in need of help, please know the law and respect the species. Right now there’s basically two fisheries… tautog and white perch.
Tog Fishing Report
NJ Tautog Fishing Season is open Jan1 to Feb 29th, 15″ 4 fish creel.
Store staffer Blake was out this week (a couple days ago) aboard the No Moores. He reported some a savage bites on the ever so deadly Magictail Tog Jigs.
Blake landed a monster, his new personal best 14 pounds, on a 1.5oz jig! Word is Dave will be keeping his boat in the water cause the fishing and weather is good. We are looking forward to more solid reports from the crew. Dave and the boat has had a killer 2019 and their 2020 is off to a great start!
Dante at Magictails was into good fishing recently aboard the No Limit down Delaware. He said the hogs were hammering, “Seven biggins from 10-18.5 pounds!!!!”
White Perch Fishing Report
So far this year, white perch fishing has been good. We got a few reports from local angler Gary Adair. A few days back “I caught a quick 70 perch for a fish fry. It was fun fishing because it bring me back to my childhood.”
Florida Fishing
Store staffer Frezza and Jay are finishing up a strike mission down in the sunshine state and they reported fishing has been good all week. Frezza said, “We have mangrove snapper at our dock along with pinfish (catching for bait). We hunted down some sheepshead and got them up to 20″. Looking for redfish but only found a couple. Lots of speckled trout at the mangroves! In total we caught 11 different species and had a blast doing so. We are already planning our next trip back.”