NJ Saltwater Fishing Reports

A comfortable midday fluke trip found plenty of short fluke, however only 1 keeper made it into the fish hotel and was released back into the Sandy Hook Bay Marina. Zempe and his “A” team go into a decent bite Tuesday evening with the boat boxing up with AL taking an 35lber and great action close by before slowing down. Rob (road map) Hellwig was on schedule to leave early to get his guys on a bite down the beach that I think is their -  early.  However, the plan fell through after Rob (not to be mixed up with Ferdinand Magellan) ended up in Red Bank and even after speaking with the 2 tooth wonder woman at 4:30am at WAWA could not find his way to Route 36! So he followed the bread crumbs back to the GSP and then taking Rt 36, thats right Rob, Rt 36 to the marina. So when we left at 5:45 I was not having happy thoughts..Rob did turn things around by hooking and landing the first bass and by the end of the trip everyone except Bobbo had bass in the box. The trip turned out well, lot’s of laughs and plenty of white meat to go around…. Wait until Skinny water Al hears this one! Dave Falk was out again in hopes of boating a bass this time. A high, hot sun did not help. Bait was easy and I headed to where I left them 2 short hours ago. As luck would have it, nothing was there and it took a couple of drifts before little Mike hooked and landed the first bass. This little guy can fish, and he quickly limited out. A stop on a bunker school down the beach put all on board into fish, not all making it into the striper hotel but bending the rods. At the change over, a move back up front found a great bite with fish busting all over and pouncing on every bait. Fishing was so good that Guy put a few in the boat as well. A great trip with lots of laughs, great weather and Little Mike showing all on board how it is done……….2 trips cancelled due to weather on Thursday and Zempe and his “A” team arrrive bright and early on Friday for my plan of heading south in hopes of finding a hot bunker school. We found the right school as bass had the poor bunker trapped close to the beach. The guys then put the urt on the bass like the bass were doing to the bunker. Uncle Lou was done before 5:30 with a brace of mid 30’s and everyone contributed in filling the striper hotel. When this bite was over we ended up on the school that provided great action all week and played catch and release until the boat traffic, and or tide slowed the bite down. Uncle Lou’s request to go fluking was granted by Zempe and we ended up in the reach with only a couple of shorts on this beautiful day on the water. If only they could all be like this.  Saturday morning had Harry Streep arrive early and we were in the game with high hopes of finding the right bunker school. Stopping south of Monmouth Beach without so much of a mark on my machine and asking if anyone had bananas, and finding them in their cooler pretty much sealed the deal. My mate Anthony said it best ” Hey Capt, were doomed”  end of story. 2 trip in 250 that I could not find bait, the first one was banana related too………       #^$* the bananas…………. Leave them home….. Of course I do not believe in that myth……