Broke the inlet shortly after 5 and starting working bunker, wouldn’t call it pods…they stretched pretty much from the inlet all the way south to Ortley/Lavalette. Some of them were thicker than others but unfortunately they were all happy bunker and swimming for their lives. Talked to Tuna Kahuna, Bri-Time, Loanfish and a couple others and everyone seemed to be doing the same…stocking up on crab bait.

Once I got a 10 gallon bucket of bunker I headed off to the Axel Carlson for sea bass and fluke. My first drift I put a nice 24″, 4 lb 12 oz fish in the box. As I was motoring back to the beginning of the drift a buddy a few slips down from me is anchoring up right on my MOB mark from where that fish was caught. I circled him a couple times, busted his stones and moved off to another piece. Only had short sea bass, cod and fluke after that.

Decided to look at a couple other wrecks but there wasn’t much life on the sonar so I didn’t bother stopping. Despite the wind against the tide in the river I decided to give it a shot. The kelp was pretty bad but if you kept your rig clean there were tons of fish there. Weeded through the shorts and put a 19 incher in the box before a boat anchored up right in the path of all who were drifting. Called it a day and headed in.

Had 52 degree water when I broke the inlet along the beach that warmed to 54/55 when I left bassing for bottom fishing. On the reef the surface was a bit warmer and was up to 60.3 at one point. After my buddy got back from wreck fishing they had a cooler full of sea bass and cod, 8 keeper cod I think he said with at least that many more shorts. They also had released a dozen or so keeper blackfish and countless short sea bass but no fluke for them while on the hook.

NJ DEP has published the 2009 Fish Consumption Advisory. Pretty much the same as last year, biggest changes are for some of the species from Raritan Bay and its estuaries.  What I am curious about is what the recommended intake on sea bass, blackfish, porgies, tunas, shark and mahi would be.  Some are mentioned briefly in the Federal Advice for Fish Consumption, but other than that they are not mentioned.  Since these are the species most desired by family and friends and the species we target more often than others it would be nice to know the state and federal governments would like to control our eating habits.

With the lackluster fall striper run we decided to mainly target tog our last two trips. Saturday we set out a little later than normal, probably around 7 am. We were returning North to Elberon Rocks but never made it there. Instead of NW winds we were greeted by stiff N to NNE winds and steep four to five foot waves. At that point we decided to surf back home and poke around the inlet for some bass. We had almost no marks on the fish finder the entire time. We then ran out to the Axcel Carlson to scout out a few spots for Sunday and stay closer to home.

We checked a few wrecks and three out of the five looked very promising with many marks swimming around them. Upon returning on Sunday, our top three picks had dive boats on them and the sun was not even up yet. Then after dealing with a ground tackle issue on another spot we were inundated with dogfish and bergals. With the wind and seas pickup up we called it quits and began reflecting back on a season that had many firsts and personal bests for us.

Despite the gale warning we wanted to give blackfishing a shot. Worst case we figured we would just turn around in the inlet and go to the diner for breakfast. I got down to the boat at 5:15, all the flags in the area were limp, and proceeded to brush the snow off the dock. Then brushed off the boat, some of which we saved for the cooler…nothing like free ice! Got the gear setup, extra anchors on the bow and left the dock at 6. Broke the inlet at 6:30 to a flat windless ocean as we suspected. Just a very light 1-2′ ground swell. Ran up to Elberon Rocks for some inshore black fishing.

Tied up on the first spot in 30′ of water around 7. It was so calm it was hard to come tight at first. Around 8 a light breeze picked up and kept us tight over our spot.

Very slow for the first half hour, only one short but as the haze cleared a bit and the water temp went up a degree the bite picked up and for the next 2.5 hours we had a halfway decent pick of keepers and shorts.

Fished till about 11 and headed in as the wind started gusting to about 15 knots almost due west. Seas were still a ground swell with maybe 6″ of chop on top. We looked around for bait and birds but did not see any and decided to head in.

We were glad we decided to at the very least take a ride to the inlet and look and see if it was fishable and the morning certainly was. Total for the day was four for the table to 4.5 lbs and 8 shorts. It was Tommy’s first blackfish trip and he fed them quite well for most of the trip till he started to develop the touch and ended the day catching the biggest fish.

Left the dock at 5:30 and a brisk 23 degree air temp and 33.5 degree water in the creek. No ice in the water. There was a dredge I guess in the inlet similar to the one down in Barnegat with only one light on it and it stretched from first ICW marker to the sea wall. I can’t imagine how they get away with blocking most of the channel with something like that, with no lights on it and not get fined.

Anyway, broke the inlet and had some birds and marks just outside…stopped and jigged but nothing. Started heading North since the plan was to hit Shrewsbury Rocks for bass then the Elberon Rocks for blackfish on the way back.

Made a couple stops off Spring Lake, Belmar, Asbury and Monmouth Beach jigging and trolling hear and there. We had a steady pick of just short, really fat fish the whole time. No blues brought to the boat although we suspect one jigged up fish that was lost just as we started to see color may have been due to its erratic fight.

Then while up off Monmouth Beach jigging I hooking into something really heavy and pretty much dead weight. I thought we might have a nice monkfish but it turned out to be a tail hooked spiny, one of the biggest I have ever seen.

On our way back South to Elberon Rocks just about at slack water we came across a bunch of birds working close to the beach and decided to jig a little more before the tide change and get setup on the hook. It was all blues about 3 pounds. it was fun for a while with poppers and jigs but then that wore off.

Made our way through the fleet onto some structure that looked good and got setup. Unfortunately I didn’t end up right over the structure but with a short toss of the baits we were into steady action and since it is not high profile structure decided to stay put. We had great action as long as you pitched to the right place and put 6 keepers all around 3 pounds and one 3.5 lbs in the box.

At about 11 the wind started kicking up and we had some pretty good white caps and taller chop so we decided to started heading back down to MI. After running about 5 minutes along the beach it flattened out again and the wind dropped out we decided to look for birds and readings and fish a little more but we found nothing. Just after noon we decided to head in early and call it a day.

Water temps outside ranged from 47.2 to 50.8 and inside from 33.5 to 35.7. Trolling we had most fish on blue/white shads with some on wine colored tubes (Thanks Brian and Ken for the color tip, finally found some this week). White tubes, black/white shads and black tubes produced nothing. Jigs we used dorado color MegaBait jigs, black/silver and blue/silver did not produce. All our short bass were spitting up peanuts and rain bait…did not see one sand eel spit up. Same with the bluefish. The blackfish were very aggressive and there was no missing a subtle bite as there were none. I even caught two fish dead sticking while making a sandwich…something I have never been able to do before. We were a little apprehensive about the day after the first stop and the rods and reels being iced up from frozen spray the first few stops but then we just brought the rods in the cabin between stops and all was good.

It was a great day with some fish in the box and a warm dry ride home. We ended up running 51.1 nm putting 7.3 hours on the motor and burning about 28 gallons of fuel for 1.82 nmpg and an average burn of 4.8 gph. I definitely see a big difference with plus (89 octane) fuel and my nmpg and gph numbers. At the end of the day getting in the slip was another story with the blowout tides though…we had to stop short and tilt the outdrive all the way up and float her in.

We had high hopes of at least wreck fishing this weekend but with the NE blow the seas were just too much for us to get outside. I did however change the oil, check all the other fluids.

Having the urge to catch something Tommy and I decided to head over to the banks of the Point Pleasant Canal. We grabbed some clam out of the freezer, headed over to the bait shop for some crabs, grabbed a sandwich and headed for my favorite spot.

Knowing the current would be very strong we got there a little early but it is a must to get a prime spot. We got into position and ate lunch waiting for the current to slow. With the strong N to NE wind I was by about an hour with slack current but we had no where to be so we waited it.

Getting anxious I decided to give it a shot while the current was still racing, I had two or three subtle taps but that was about it in the first hour. Once the current started slowing though the fish turned on.

We probably had sixty to seventy blackfish between us with about twenty five sea bass mixed in as well. Unfortunately we had not one keeper between us. There were about a dozen others fishing withing view and out of all of them we only saw one legitimate keeper caught.

We did not get our limit of one fish per man but it was still good to have non-stop action and catch a mess of fish despite the conditions. To top the day off Tommy caught his first blackfish among the many caught today.

We bagged our offshore trip due to lack of reports from the canyons. Then we bagged our mid-shore trip again due to lack of reports and only a crew of three. It may have been a bad call with some reports trickling in from both the edge and the mid-shore waters.

Left the dock at 6 am and were shocked with the amount of boat traffic. More than any day we were out in the summer including the holiday weekends. The Point Canal looked like a Christmas tree when we looked back behind us with all the red, green and white lights.

Broke the inlet and were greeted with birds working from Bay Head South as far as you could see with the binoculars. We went from pod to pod of bait all the way down to Lavalette. Plenty of bait (peanuts and spearing) but only managed snappers and sea robins. The amount of sea robins was amazing, I think we caught more in two hours yesterday on both bait and jigs than we did all summer fluking.

After giving up on stripers we decided to hit some wrecks and rock piles on the Axel Carlson. With very little drift (.2-.4 knots) and no stellar pickings at any one location we drifted about eight different pieces. I had hoped to tie up and get some togging in but each wreck we tried was inundated with bergals to about 1.5 lbs. Some of the biggest I have seen inshore in a while.

We did manage probably over 100 sea bass and porgies though on clam, fiddler crab and gulp baits. Keeper ration was poor with many of the sea bass just under, right on or just over 12″…but with the small fillet size of a just legal fish we only keep fish over 14″.We ended the day with a nice cooler of sea bass to 18″ and porgies to 13″ keeping only about a dozen fish for the table between the two of us and were back at the dock around noon.

Saturday I headed right for a wreck on the Axel Carlson. I made a couple passes drifting over it before anchoring to test the waters. On each of the two drifts I caught a couple shorts and put a keeper sea bass in the box on each pass. After anchoring up and getting in position over the portion that I wanted it was non-stop action with short and keeper sea bass and a few short tog with one keeper about three pounds. The bergals were not too bad, had about a dozen of them as well as two would-be keeper fluke at 22 and 23 inches that were released for next season. I also gave a couple of rock piles a shot, they each produced keepers and shorts as well. Upon returning to the Inlet I was greeted with acres of bunker with nothing working them, they were just flipping and being playful.

Sunday I got a late start leaving the dock about 7 AM and decided to head back to the same wreck since it was producing so well. It did not produce as I had hopped. I guess the swifter currents of the full moon on a day and stronger winds had put the fish off a bit. I moved around to the rock piles and began picking at fish with keepers, shorts and tons of bergals mixed in. I decided to call it a day early as the winds picked up a bit. Approaching the bell buoy there were fish busting everywhere. I grabbed the first rod rigged with an artificial which happened to be a bunker colored rattle trap. I immediately hooked up with something small…it turned out to be a snagged bunker. I knew there was something under them this time as they were spraying out of the water and not just being playful. Second cast I hooked into something much bigger…it turned out to be a four pound bonito. They were everywhere and I had one on with every cast until the fleet showed up speeding right through the breaking fish putting them down in a matter of minutes.

I can’t wait for cooler temps to weed out the fisherman that lack both proper boat handling skills and proper etiquette when fishing bunker pods or schools of breaking fish. It is very frustrating and you can’t explain to them that they will catch more fish if they adjust their methods as their way is the only way and no one else knows what they are doing. All-in-all it was a great weekend on the water with fish in the box two days in a row and sore arms.

I had no particular plan except to spend the day on the water. I wish I could have planned on targeting stripers but when I broke the inlet and was created to 64 degree water and the sun was just coming up I figured that would be a lost cause. I marked water as warm as 67.2.

As I started running down the beach there was not a bird to be found except for migrating geese. I made a few quick stops along the way where we had fish last week but there was even a lack of bait on those structures. I continued south and started to mark bait and fish between Mantoloking and Ocean Beach.

There were a lot of boats working the area and all they were doing was working. I decided to drop down some gulp on a bottom style rig. Immediately had a double header of spike weakfish. With the small size of fish I decided to move on.

I setup again off Top of the Mast in 60′ of water and began catching 18-22″ weakfish. I setup on a bait rig and sent it down to see if there were any takers. I continued bail the weakfish and quickly had my limit. I had no takers on the live lined fish.

I stopped on a couple of inshore wrecks on the way in and had more weakfish and hoards of 11.5″ sea bass. I did have quite a few real strong hits that stripped the gulp bait right off a bait holder hook. Didn’t feel like blackfish…there was no tap, tap, wham! Just a single strong hit. Will probably make quick stops on those spots again this weekend to try and figure out what was down there.

Spoke to RTK and John on the radio (From Barnegat Fishin’ Hole)…sounded like they both had small bonito throughout the day. I trolled back to MI with only bluefish on the clark spoons. I would have though 6 kts was fast enough to avoid them, even increased to 6.8 and still picked up blues.

All in all it was a nice relaxing day on the water and fish in the box. Hopefully we will see a drop to normal temps, this 10+ degrees above normal is going to really kill the fall run. I hope the fish when they come south around LI don’t stay out far and pass us by

We decided to do a little scouting for a tournament we are in next week. Anthony and I headed out of Squan in the soup.

A blind man could have located bait. Although with very low visibility pretty much everyone was blind. Our first stop we could hear birds working and splashes but could not locate them in the fog (I had decided not go any shallower than 20-25′ when not able to see the shoreline). The bait was everywhere, I think in the 45+ nm we covered there were only about 3 nm that had no bait. It was on top with birds working it, blanketing the bottom suspended you name it we found. Unfortunately there were no bass working the schools.

We made several stops that had more promising marks on the sonar and jigged. Anthony had two hookups that soon dropped off. Once the fog started to lift a little more we gave up jigging and made the run to our intended destination. With flat seas we made good time at 28kts to our nest stop.

Once there we jigged a little with only a few hits decided to go on the troll. Trolled up the rocks, across, up to the cedars, along the west side of the reef and back down to the rocks. Had one nice knockdown and boated two bluefish with Anthony dropping one boat side. He called it a graceful release or something like that but I wasn’t buying it.

On the way in we made a quick stop on some mussel beds but there were only short sea bass and blackfish. There were a lot of boats drifting and anchored bottom fishing the mussel beds and rocky bottom areas. There were also tons of pots and traps there which was suprising. I have never seen that many there but I guess with the pressure from Reef Rescue we will win the reefs back but lose some other productive bottom in the process.

It was a nice day on the water once the fog lifted. The fog definitely made for an uneasy run out but all in all it was good to be back in my home waters.

The blackfish are still inshore. I headed over to the canal and there was no action so I figured I would try the jetties at Manasquan Inlet. Had several shorts and keepers in a couple of hours. Kept one at 18.5″ and 3lb. 7oz.

I’m glad I went by my own thoughts on the weather and not the weather man’s…3PM and only a drizzle, the whole time I was down south there was barely a breeze and no rain. The fog was something to be reckoned with. A few times you could not see across the inlet.

Only three more days till the bag limit goes up!

I hit the canal again this afternoon and had more fish. I fished with my cousin and between the two of us we again had probably over 25-30 fish not including the pesky cunners. It was once again a clam preference, with them also going for clam and mussel Gulp! baits. I would try fresh mussels next time as they seem to hit the Gulp! mussel bait pretty hard. And once again the action did not heat up or even start for that matter until the current started moving pretty good. Tonight’s keeper was 15.5″ at 2lb 5oz. If I don’t get out striper fishing on Sunday you bet you will find me along the banks of the canal. And yes another limit catch! That makes it two in a row.

I could not get a crew together with a last minute notice to take advantage of a small striper blitz I was told about. So I decided to give some of the inshore blackfishing grounds a shot. I picked up some clams and green grabs to have a variety of baits and headed over to the Point Pleasant Canal. I got there about 3 PM and at first the action was non-existent with the crabs. I switched over to clam and had some short blackfish and bergals. The bergals became a pain but the blackfish did not seem interested in green crabs so I had to deal with it. Once the current picked up to near max velocity for the incoming the blackfish turned on. I had over 30 fish most being shorts and kept one 15″ fish. All in all it was a great first blackfish trip of the fall and a limit catch!

Unfortunately I did not get out this weekend even though it was one of the nicest weekends all season. Due to a lack of crew I was forced to stay tied up and listen to all the fun on the radio. Several boats returned to the marina with multiple fish in their boxes. Double and triple headers were the norm instead of rare. Most of the fish ranged from 24-28 inches. No one came back with anything larger than 28″. Almost everyone reported catches of from thirty to over one hunderd fish caught for the day. There were also a few tog caught for those who anchored up in the afternoon. The white chins were all only just legal fish, nothing of notable size. I have also received word of some inshore cod and ling catches….come on cod make an inshore comeback! It would be nice to be able to catch ling in the surf again in December through March. I think the last time I had ling in the surf was over 10 years ago.

We headed out to the Sea Girt Reef late morning. It was not a bad ride out and the first 10 minutes were OK before the South wind really started to kick up. Tried jigging where we saw some birds and marks on the FF. Made a few stops on the way back in, had a couple of short blackfish and several blues. Wish I would have gotten up earlier, would have been able to fish longer and probably would have found some larger blackfish. Oh well, next weeks forecast looks great right now….lets see if it holds up.