Back-to-back BFT
Saturday we headed out on my boat to the mud hole. Hit several spots, Humpty Dumpty, 20 fathom slough, Little Italy, Monster Ledge, Slough and some other lumps. Water was not as charted, it was cold, dirty and gray. Had some bait balls, porpoise and had a hard time picking through the monster bluefish to find an under fish. We finally came tight on a small 33 inch, 27.1 pound dressed under fish. After a while of no other knockdowns we ran down to Barnegat Ridge after talking to Bri-Time to try and get into the bonito bite and got there at the end of it and only came up with a falsie. Decided to go in Barnegat and run up the inside…should have gone all the way back up to Squan…outside was like a lake and bay was a washing machine.
Sunday shoved off on the 35′ Bertram at 2:30 headed to the Atlantic Princess area. Stopped 1.2 miles short of our numbers just before first light due to breaking skippies, BFT and spraying bait. Immediately dropped one of my ‘Dragon Fly’ colored jigs down on a 50, clipped it the outrigger, before I could grab my jigging rod with another jig that rod went off. Grabbed the rod, fought the fish for about 10 minutes and the hook pulled. Moved back on that spot, had good marks again got the rods set and chunks going. But for the next two hours it was just catch and release skippies. Once there was enough light to see down in the water we did see BFT cruising below the skippies but they had lock jaw. We tried all different kinds of jigs, sardines, peanuts, squid, different plastic baits…nothing. Two hours after the first fish we get another hookup, same rod, same jig. Ryan (the owner of the boat) had come down off the bridge to go to the bathroom and get a sandwich said hey, this line release from the rigger clip. Funny thing was, fish didn’t take line right away. He went to reset it and as he was putting it back into the clip, fish took off. This little guy was feisty and we had to move the boat a few times as he kept running under it. Fish came to gaff rather quickly though and it turned out to be a 34 inch, 33 pound fish and Ryan’s first BFT and first tuna on his boat. We moved back on our spot but again continued with the skippies and that was it. We did see some bigger fish under them throughout the rest of the trip and a few boats around us hooked up but that was it for us. Trolled a little around the fleet without a touch and then headed in at noon. Back at the dock at 2:30.
Thank you! You often write very interesting articles. You improved my mood.