Posts Tagged ‘porgies’
First blowfish trip
Saturday, September 26th, 2009With the wind blowing pretty good out of the East and snotty seas Tommy and I decided to run down Barnegat Bay to the BB buoy and go blowfishing. For both of us it ws our first blowfishing trip. We left the dock about 7:30 and made good time South and were setup by 8:15.
It wasn’t 15 minutes after getting the chum pots and lines in before we had a pretty good school of northern puffers around the boat and bent rods. The action continued for a few hours till the tide went slack.
We also had countless short sea bass and half a dozen nice sized porgies and a few snappers to round out the mixed bag.
Water was 63.9 to 65.8 depending on time of day and location in the bay. Fish took both clam and squid and we ended up keeping 35 good sized blowfish and half dozen porgies.
Mixed bag
Sunday, September 20th, 2009Had high hopes of running out to the Glory Hole but my crew bailed. Left the dock at 6 am solo, broke the inlet and was greeted to birds working and only two other boats in the on the action. Had non-stop action with spike weaks for two hours until leaving fish to find fish.
Moved out onto the Axel Carlson Reef and with very little wind or current and the few boats that were anchored and doing circles decided to drift the deck barges and rock piles. Again had non-stop action with mostly short sea bass and monster porgies. Had triggers coming up with the porgies but couldn’t hookup with any. Also released several would be keeper fluke. After boxing a few porgies I said screw it and headed further off.
Put lines in at the 15 line and the inshore slough and headed toward Little Italy. Shortly after I had a falsie on a green/yellow mini feather daisy chain. Reset the lines and 10 minutes later had another one. Circled back around and had big splash on the mini spreader bar. Then a smaller splash and I thought I finally had something good, but it came unbuttoned after about three minutes. Reset the lines again and trolled back toward Manasquan Ridge without a touch. Had great marks deep, never stopped to jig, didn’t feel they were concentrated enough warrant it, in hindsight, probably a bad idea.
Picked up and ran back to the reef and boxed a few more porgies and at 2 pm called it a day.
I also started using the Lucanus jigs that have been in the boat all season, they work pretty well. Had weakfish and sea bass on them Sunday and sea bass on last Tuesday. Only reason I tried them for weaks was I had broken off the leader on my spinning rig and didn’t want to take the time to re-rig so I tied in a dropper look to put on the chartreuse/yellow clouser that I was doing so well with the weaks and I started getting double headers. The jig that worked for the weaks was the green/gold. It was the 3oz size which was overkill for the drift we had in 30′ but I had only planned on using it get the teaser down but the weaks were all over it.
I normally don’t stay out that late and now I remember why…the inlet, train bridge and canal were a zoo. The hard charging outgoing from the moon and the SE breeze didn’t help the inlet with all the joy riders that haven’t been out in a month but it was still a great day on the water and glad I went. Water inshore was 66-68 degrees and pretty clean and green/brown, offshore was clean, blue/gray and 64-66.
NJMFC Sept. 3 Meeting Update
Tuesday, September 1st, 2009I just received an update from Tom Fote about this weeks NJMFC meeting about sea bass, scup and summer flounder.
…Tom McCloy sent out the notice below in maroon telling us that these agenda items have been removed from this Thursday’s NJ Marine Fisheries meeting.
Tom Fote
Greetings,
Just completed the conference call of the ASMFC Summer Flounder, Scup, Black Sea Bass Board to discuss emergency closures in the summer flounder, scup and sea bass recreational fisheries for the remainder this year, 2009.
Even though the projections are that ALL fisheries will be over the harvest target (significantly for scup & sea bass) the Board failed to approve any action for an emergency closure this year.
Therefore, there will be NO action required by the Council at the Sept 3 meeting on these species.
Be advised that management measures for these species could be extremely restrictive in 2010.
Please note that NJ’s recreational summer flounder fishery is projected to exceed our target harvest by 29%.
Tom McCloy
No closures for 2009!
Tuesday, September 1st, 2009I just got off the call for the ASMFC meeting today. It took over 1.5 hours for me to even get into the call. So I missed the presentation on black sea bass and the public comment as well. Apparently they only had available seats for 50 callers in the conference call. After Tom Fote, the Governor’s Appointee to the ASMFC, was also kicked out of the call they suspended the call and increased the available seats.
They then re-opened the floor to public comment in favor for a motion to close black sea bass. The motion to close the remainder of the 2009 black sea bass season was overruled 7 votes against and 4 for.
There was no motion on the floor for scup or summer flounder.
There were several states that asked questions as to how the projected landings were calculated and there were some very concerning answers given. The projections were calculated on the 2008 seasons, bag limits and minimum sizes. If any of the states had put in place shorter or longer seasons, changed bag limits or minimum sizes those regulations were not used in the projections. Most states have changed seasons, bag limits and minimum sizes on summer flounder in particular, sea bass has pretty much remained unchanged over the past few years.
The ASMFC had acknowledged they had problems and this was one of their first webinar and conference calls but they were pleased with the amount of callers and attendees to the webinars and that they had more people on the conference call than have ever attended a board meeting. They hope to continue with this forum and look to work out the kinks to be able to provide more opportunity for the public to be involved with the process.
What happened to Danny?
Sunday, August 30th, 2009I went down to the boat Saturday morning to ride out the storm and rearrange the tackle lockers Saturday and hopefully install rod holders and maybe the outriggers on Sunday. Tropical Storm Danny was a big disappointment. There was no wind to speak of and not much more than your average downpour as far as rain.
Got the lockers straightened out and hopefully in a more user friendly arrangement. Billy came back in with a limit of fluke from a rough inlet. He lost a couple of big fish in the 6 to 8 pound range trying to net them. I then had a hard decision to make, go fishing or work on the boat.
I did what any self respecting fisherman would do…I went fishing. I made a quick stop in the river before heading to the inlet. Got a couple hits in the river but quickly moved on. The inlet produced all the shorts you wanted, had a few hits on a jig that felt like weakfish but never came tight, which made think more that they were weaks being finicky and just mouthing the bait.
Was back at the dock by 1 pm, got cleaned up and just hung out with friends and enjoyed the beautiful day. Hopefully I will get to the installations this weekend since fluke will be closed and wreck fishing may be as well. I will post info on the pending closure of scup and sea bass as soon as I find anything out. I should have an idea Tuesday night.
2009 Fish Consumption Advisory
Saturday, March 28th, 2009NJ 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.
Striper & wreck trip
Saturday, November 1st, 2008We had non-stop action all day…while it was not some of the species or sizes of them we wanted it, it was an awesome day on the water.
Left the dock at 6:25, broke the inlet, looked North East and South…saw some birds to the South and started jigging around them…nothing. Continued South away from the fleet near the inlet and kept working the birds and bait pods…had a couple of bumps on plastics, bucktails and various irons but no fish.
Headed down to Seaside when we got a call on the phone from a friend of one of the crew that was catching bass. Put out a dark red tube rig, pearl and black back shad umbrella rig and a chartreuse mojo. The tube rig got a couple knockdowns but nothing came tight. Shad rigs and mojo’s started hooking up almost immediately.
Had a steady pick of medium and large blues with short bass mixed in about every two blues then a bass. We kept working that area and bait pods and switched out the tubes for pearl and blue back shads and that became the hot color so we switched both umbrella rigs to pearl/blue and put out the white/black mojo’s since I did not make up any blue/white yet (shame on me for thinking they would not go after a blueback herring pattern yet). We kept at it with several fish on each pass until about noon when we picked up and ran up to a wreck in 65′ of water.
Put the anchors out and two of the crew had sea bass in the boat before we came tight. Once we came tight over the wreck it was drop and reel action the whole time. We shifted a couple of times over it to try and find some bigger fish. We had a constant pick of sea bass and monster porgies (near 2 lbs). Then the wind died out and when the current went slack it was hard to stay over the wreck.
We picked up the anchors and drifted a few near by rock piles and put a few more fish in the box before heading in around 2:30 pm.
My best guess on the final tally was around 30 blues (kept 10), 5 short bass, 100 plus sea bass (kept 20) and 60 porgies (kept 15). What a great November day on the water, calm seas, fair winds, warm sunny day and fish in the box. It was great talking to all the members of Barnegat Fishin’ Hole on the radio…shee’s a keeper, just a fluke, Davo, heard EMALS but I don’t think he could hear me, speedbump, sorry if I missed anyone (talked to dozens of guys on the radio yesterday), and even Jim made it out yesterday-I bet the neighbors are glad to see the lawn ornament gone!
Striper/wreck trip…the glass is half full
Saturday, October 4th, 2008We 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.