…and it was probably a good move with Hurricane Bill racing up the coast creating quite a stir in the last stretch of summer flounder season in NJ.  I had originally planned a BBQ on Saturday for the Admiral’s birthday but postponed it till Sunday due to the potential of bad weather. 

The party was a good success, we had hot dogs, burgers, chicken and ribs with all the trimmings.  Ribs were slow cooked for three hours in a special marinate and then finished off on the grill for a nice charring with homemade BBQ sauce.  Oh did I mention all sorts of imported beer, margarita’s and mojito’s?  MMMMM!

This weekend we are supposed to head up to the Boston area and head out to Stellwagon Bank for giant cod, pollock and haddock.  Right now the weather doesn’t look good and the weather at home this weekend is no peach either.

COASTAL WATERS FORECAST
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE TAUNTON MA
857 AM EDT TUE AUG 25 2009
COASTAL WATERS FROM THE MERRIMACK RIVER MA TO WATCH HILL RI OUT TO
25 NM
ANZ250-260015-
COASTAL WATERS EAST OF IPSWICH BAY AND THE STELLWAGEN BANK
NATIONAL MARINE SANCTUARY-
857 AM EDT TUE AUG 25 2009

FRI
NE WINDS AROUND 10 KT…BECOMING E WITH GUSTS UP TO 20 KT
IN THE LATE AFTERNOON AND OVERNIGHT. SEAS 2 TO 3 FT…BUILDING TO
3 TO 5 FT AFTER MIDNIGHT. A CHANCE OF SHOWERS.

SAT
E WINDS 5 TO 10 KT. GUSTS UP TO 25 KT THROUGH EARLY
EVENING. SEAS 5 TO 8 FT. A CHANCE OF SHOWERS.

With a great weekend last week and all the positive reports coming in during the week from those that got out I got a weekend pass from the Admiral and was planning on fishing both Saturday and Sunday weather permitting.

Got down to the marina by 8 pm and unloaded and began rigging up for Saturday.  Made plans with the crew to leave a little earlier, hoping to shove off a little before or no later than 5 am.

5:10 Saturday morning just as I am about to call Wayne he rolls into the marina.  He jumps aboard and off we go.

Broke the inlet and pretty much steamed right to the spot off Mantoloking I had fish the week before.  We had great marks, plenty of bait and conditions looked really good.

We moved from pod to pod looking for bass, each pod looked agitated and unhappy but each time we failed to hookup.  Finally about 10:30 Wayne gets a pickup, hooks up and we boat a nice 25.5 pound fish.  We continued to work the area but were only able to boat the one fish.

Back at the dock we get cleaned up and the drinks start flowing.  Then we all go out for dinner and made plans for Sunday.  We would be sailing with Wayne, Danny and his son Michael, again supposedly at or before 5 am.

Sunday morning I was ready to go and had the engine warming up at 4:44…no one was up or ready yet.  After knocking on boats and receiving a call from Wayne I figured we would be leaving even later today.  Ended up shoving off about 5:35.

Broke the inlet and immediately headed back down to Mantoloking.  After making bait and screwing around with a few bunker pods BriTime from Barnegat Fishin’ Hole called me down to off Lavalette.  I asked where he was, his reply was you will see when you get here.

Upon arriving at Lavalette it looked like the Tice’s Shoal fleet got lost and ended up on the East side of the barrier island.  From the scene today you would never imagine that there was a financial crisis going on.  There had to be 300-400 boats converged on this area that was holding bass.

Shortly after arriving we had our first shot at a bass that appeared to be in the 25-30 pound class.  It was on the lightest rod we were snagging with and quickly spooled and eventually broke off Michael.  I tried to explain to him to loosen the drag as pressure increases when the spool diameter gets smaller but kids never want to listen, they think they know everything.

Soon after that I dropped a fish, there was a reel malfunction.  Well, actually someone, I think myself, put the lever to strike and not bait.  The fish ran about three feet before dropping the bait due to too much tension on the line.

Then about 20 minutes later we dropped our last hookup as well.  Had we left on time we might  have had a larger window of opportunity before the boat traffic and full bellies from the bass gorging on bunker quieted the bite down.

We trolled for about an hour after leaving the fleet with great marks but not one knockdown.  After that we pod hopped finding some active pods again but no run offs or hookups.

Running back to the inlet we noticed a large fleet and several head boats just North of the inlet so we decided to investigate.  It looked like some of the fish coming up on the head boats were whiting with some cocktail blues mixed in.

I quickly handed out small jigs and we proceeded to get in on the light tackle blues action for a few minutes.  This proved to save the day and keep the skunk off the boat.

While it wasn’t the mad dog bite of last week it was a fun weekend with fish in the boat, smiling faces and way too much beer and alcohol consumed once again.  The weather was great and we had calm seas both days.  Hopefully the bass stick around a few weeks longer.  Water temps rose a little from Saturday to Sunday but not by much.

Some years we have a dry spring and some years you think you are living in Seattle.  This year we are having a very wet spring.  The forecast from the night before had the showers ending around 10 am so we figured we would be able to get a solid half day of fishing in.  Wrong!  The raid did not stop until I got into my truck to head home around 5 pm.

I did get cabin straightened out a little more and got some ideas for gear storage which I will implement next weekend.  I also picked up a five foot length of 5/16″ BBB or short link chain to add to my rode in what seems to be a never ending attempt to anchor the boat easily.  Hopefully this will do the trick.

Once the little chores were done and some other guys showed up it became a boat hopping beer drinking day.  Shotting the shit with good friends and making plans for the rest of the season.  This coming weekend looks to be much nicer and I may even get out Friday and Saturday which would be awesome!

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.

Tomorrow’s weather looks great. I can’t get off of work, nor can I muster a four man crew for a weekday with ease. This coming weekend has forecasted for another East to Northeast blow coming our way most likely keeping everyone at the dock or at least in the rivers and bays.

I guess I will do my oil change, hose, belt inspection, torque nuts & bolts, etc. and then go for a boat ride. Maybe head over to the canal and do some black fishing.

Due to conflicting numbers from my fuel gauge I will also re-measure the tank to re-calculate the volume levels at various point of the gauge. I had previously calculated that at three quarters of a tank I have sixty six gallons, thus only needing twenty four gallons to fill the tank. When refilling this weekend from three quarters it only took twenty gallons to fill the tank. I know it may seem trivial but I like to know my range for longer trips, know that I can go out and come back with less than a full tank with confidence and if I have fuel delivered, how much to have brought in and end up with a full tank.

The dock box could use a good cleaning out, over the season lots of stuff gets tossed in as a temporary storage location and never makes it back out. I also need to get a good inventory of my sinkers for the upcoming wreck season.

As much as I would really like to get a good half to three quarter day of fishing in, I can get lots of odds and ends taken care of for those days when we can get out and won’t have time to do them.

Due to weather yet again we stayed tied up. I did however get some PM and other odds and ends taken care of this weekend. I also tried to get fuel while out for a boat ride in the Metedeconk and the bay but no fuel docks were open.

Originally my raw water wash-down pump suction side was routed around the outside of the motor well. After installing the sea strainer we redirected the suction line under the motor. At the time it seemed like a good idea. However the hose that was used did not hold up to heating and cooling from the motor. I replaced the nylon reinforced tubing with wire reinforced wet exhaust hose as well as installing a sea strainer on the wash-down pump. This was probably overkill but two buddies had their pumps die this year and after dismantling in attempts to fix them they were pretty loaded up with crap.

We went for a quick boat ride in Mark’s 37 Bertram to test the new gaskets on the sea strainers prior to running offshore this weekend. After that we took a quick ride in my boat.

Next I performed the 100 hour service including: torquing nuts, bolts, clamps, servicing the batteries, checking all lamps, bilge pumps and electrical circuits for functionality, checking fluids and an oil change.

The marina was pretty void of life, similar to the waters along the coast prior to the big blow. By early afternoon I was the only one left at their boat.

 I finally put each electrical circuit on its own breaker. Something I have been putting off for some time. Of course I left a brand new package of terminals at home on the workbench so off the hardware store I was…luckily they have an expanded marine section and carry waterproof electrical terminals and are only a half mile down the street. After getting back I also realized I left the spool of red number 14 primary wire on the bench at home as well. Luckily I found a three foot scrap in the bottom of my spare parts bin and began installing all the breakers.

I have to redo the labeling, I was in a rush and did not cut them even or stick them on straight but at least I know which breaker is for which and they are all on their own complete circuits now.

Looks like Mother Nature is getting ready to blow for a few days with a good Nor’easter coming. While it will keep us inshore or in the bays and rivers again this week it may be just what we need to get the yellow fin tuna bite going in the northeast or move the long fin south from The Dip and Fish Tales.

Most likely we will be headed South in Barnegat Bay this weekend searching out keeper sized weakfish. There has been a pretty good bite of puffers and kings with spikes mixed in an occasional larger weak…hopefully we can key in on all larger ones. I hope to net a bunch of peanuts for bait Friday nigh.

After much hype she was not much more than our average Nor’easter. But everyone pretty much prepared for the worst and fastened storm lines to pilings not already occupied by their everyday lines. I had thought about fishing but with the early morning fog I decided to stay in and work on the boat. Later on I found out there was a mad dog fluke bite right at the mouth of the inlet, pretty much anyone who went had limit catches in no time.

I did accomplish something I have been putting off for some time though. I replaced my main rear bilge pump with a much larger model and then replaced the froward bilge pump with old main pump. Also a big upgrade in pump size…from 360gph to 1500gph. I am not sure what they were thinking with only installing a 360 pump, it would not do much in an emergency that is for sure.

After making sure everything was in order if the storm did come through I headed down to Sun Harbor Bay Club to pickup some tackle I had ordered and also pickup a birthday present. Joey was having a ball with the wind and rain, but most others did not want to be bothered. Joe was hunkered down in the bait shop that seemed to be taking on a little water under the door from the wind driven rain. Not long after my arrival did the chop in the bay start breaking onto the fuel dock. Conditions were very different from Beaverdam Creek with their facing East and being closer to the inlet with no land mass or buildings to break the wind or sea coming in from the storm.

The ride home was pretty uneventful until I reached the Driscal Bridge where it seemed the heavens opened up and everyone forgot how to drive in rain. The rain and wind was no match for the RainX wiper blades and Venco Marine rain and water repellent though once I was able to break free from the traffic.

Curious as to your thoughts on what the weekend’s forecasted heave will do to the fluke fishery. I have a feeling it will be the beginning of the end. In years past when the close was Columbus Day that was a much bigger deal. If my memory and my quick glance at my logs was correct the last time they fled the inshore waters in a hurry before a storm was in September of 2005. What do you think…will the heave starting on Saturday trigger them to migrate back to the shelf? It seems that they are already showing in numbers in the haunts that we typically fish in mid to late September.

Looks like this weekend is a bust for offshore and near shore waters. I guess the remnants of Bertha are making their way inland. We were supposed to fish the Elk’s Fluke Tournament but I can’t see racing around and getting beat up over fluke. That and if I had to guess fishing will probably be off from the ground swell earlier in the week and the rough conditions tonight. Great conditions for tuna and bass but not finicky ground fish. I will probably just fish the river real early for a couple hours before the boat traffic picks up then go back and work on the boat and the dock.

It is amazing how unstable the weather is this time of year. If you watch the forecasts through out the day over the course of a few days you could literally go bald in a few short days. We have been trying to plan an offshore exploratory trip for weeks now. One day its a go, then the next it is off…oh wait two hours later the forecast is great! What the hell…come on Mother Nature throw us a bone here.

Well, Mark called off the trip to the Hudson again this weekend. I hope this does not turn into a regular thing like it did last year. We went six weeks in a row with crappy weather before we were able to get offshore. It just doesn’t pay to get beat up on the ride out and the ride in and hope you don’t run into a thunder storm are really get your butt kicked.

So now it is on to plan B. We will be heading North early looking for some hold out bass and then on to Monmouth Beach for some fluking. We did our first fluke trip of 2007 the first week of July and had a limit catch so hopefully we can have a repeat in 2008.

Boy did I goof when looking at the weather. I committed to helping my mother do some packing for her move later this month on Saturday leaving me Sunday to go fishing or work on the boat. With the hard NE blow on Sunday there was 1 foot of chop with white caps coming West up the creek.

I heard a few guys on the radio claiming they had fish but you know how fisherman on the radio are…more likely than not they had no fish.

In between showers I compounded the aft pilothouse bulkhead and cockpit. I also tried the compound on the interior glass and it removed the three years of sneaker marks pretty well. Much better than anything else has. The difficult part with the interior is it is not gel coated nor smooth. It is splattered with resin and then painted flat white. A surface that I will never own again.

While I was disappointed to not fish, you can not get skunked if you don’t wet a line!

My everyday watch recently started to self destruct. The rivets are popping, buttons falling off and needed another new battery. I decided to finally replace it. After some hunting around I found a really cool watch. I did have to give up alarm and countdown timers but I think it was well worth it.

I went with a Timex e-Instruments Time and Temp plus Compass. It has a compass, temperature sensor and tide clock, as well as the usual time and date features. It is water resistant to 100 meters and has a back light for low light conditions. Now I will always know what direction is home and the tide stage!

I was hoping to start removing my battery switch and some wiring from the transom of the boat. When I arrived to the marina an old Egg Harbor behind me was doing wood and glass work. This was kicking up dusk, particles and some good size chunks of both glass and wood not only in my direction but into the cockpit of my boat. It wasn’t a sand storm but it definitly blocked out some of the little light that was shining through the clouds…at least from the vantage point of my cockpit. The guys never even apologized about the mess on and in my boat or about me having to work in their mess. They were not wearing masks or respirators either. The best part was watching them repair fiberglass with bondo though. I hope they are not just repairing the boat for a quick re-sale…the poor soul that does not figure out that they cut every corner fixing it up will have some real problems down the road.

So without being able to work outside I turned my energy to the inside. I cleaned the whole pilothouse from headliner to sole. Applied the anti-fog to the windows, polished the stainless sink, removed the drain to measure for a replacement and measured to make a bracket to support the ditch bag.

I am still not sure what to do about the black streaks on the painted glass surfaces from sneakers and even boat shoes around the seating areas. Since it is not a smooth finish like gel coat it mars very easily. I may consider sanding it smooth and gel coating it or covering it with some thin teak plywood. I would rather keep it white or light in color so it does not feel closed in, but there is a lot of surface to sand and re-paint.

Hopefully the weather is good enough this weekend. I plan on installing the new battery switches, charge relay, breakers, battery boxes, batteries, battery charger and polishing at least from the rub rail down. If I can get all that done and next week we install the through hulls I am all set to get wet!

I just want to thank everyone we had out this year. It was a great season, we caught tons of fish , had a great time and made some memories. Out of the 50 plus trips only once did we return to the dock without catching a single fish and only three times without anything in the box!

Originally I was not planning on coming out of the water due to the weather but since my chronic running hot issue needs to be rectified we pulled her yesterday. She is winterized and on a trailer waiting for a high speed raw water pickup and sea strainer retrofit. I received all the parts yesterday and should be doing the install weather permitting next Tuesday. If all goes well, the weather stays mild and bass stick around we should be re-splashing her soon!

What really surprised me though was that my zincs were pretty well intact. None of the metals, (drive, trim tabs, through hulls, risers, manifolds, etc.) show any electrolysis either. Strange because the previous year I had to have them replaced mid season and I was in the water for less time. In any event I will be replacing them regardless since we will be adding a substantial amount of bronze to the equation with the new through hull, sea cock, sea strainer and three 90 degree elbows.

I was thinking to myself as I was breaking the inlet that if I had made it this far though the season without being skunked that I may make it through the entire season. After thinking that I should have turned around and only gone for a boat ride. After about 45 or so trips I had the skunk on the boat.

I knew before leaving the dock that the water would probably still be very dirty from the blow that had just finished the night before. Most of the crew that I was trying to line up had reservations from the weather forecast and not the prospect of poor fishing conditions. As usually Buoyweather.com was right on with the forecast. They had predicted a four foot ground swell and I think most of the day inside the three mile line was more like 3 foot.

I ran down to the Seaside Piers are good clip (26 knots) and put out a chartreuse Secret Spoon due to water clarity. After 30 minutes of no action I switched to bunker blue and then white. I was surprised to get knockdowns on the white in dirty water. I also pulled a few different Stretch pugs that also did not produce.

There were a lot of big marks deep and along the bottom. I did not mark any bait to speak of, not like two weeks ago. There were also a lot of small to medium sized fish suspended in the water column between twelve and twenty five feet. I stopped a few times to jig both deep and mid water column to try and entice whatever was there to bit but with no avail.

I spoke to several guys and not much was doing outside on the troll. The guys I spoke to that stayed inside Barnegat Inlet and clammed were producing shorts and slot sized fish throughout the day when the tidal stage was right.

It was a beautiful day on the water, the boat ran great, and I did about fifty nautical miles round trip on twelve gallons of fuel and returned to port safe and sound. Can’t ask for much more out of a great fall day…well maybe full fish boxes!

Spent yesterday rigging baits and lures, sharpening hooks and still have a lot of prep for a local tournament this weekend. It is mainly a bragging rights tourney between a close group of guys that have for the most part met through an online fishing forum on Barnegat Fishing Hole.

For those interested you can get full details and an entry form here. As of the writing of this post there are 30 boats entered and we anticipate 50 plus by the conclusion of the captain’s meeting. With 50 boats the first place payout should be about $3,000.00!

We had originally planned on making a pretty good run and clamming or chunking bunker, it looks like that is all going to change with winds predicted in the 30 knot range and seas topping six feet.

Now we just need to decide on our plan B. I would like to fish two different areas of the bay but not sure about running across the bay for 20+ nautical miles in those winds either. It should be doable but certainly not fast or comfortable like the run last week back to home port was.

I think right now with the lack of a consistent bass fishery the best thing that could happen is that the winds increase and a gale warning is issued. This would cause the tournament committee to reschedule the tournament. With the ASA tournament the following weekend that would push this one back another week and probably into much better fishing as the weather and water starts to cool.

Either way it will be a busy week scouting, preparing and nail biting until the final decisions are made to call due to weather or leave the dock and find some fish.

What a mistake it was taking the cover off the boat last week. 2-3 inches of ice and melted and re-frozen snow covering the cockpit, swim platform, gunwales and forward deck. What a pain the but to break it up and get it off the boat. when it partially melts and re-freezes it sure grabs onto the non-skid deck and does not like to let go. Hopefully the thin coating of snow and ice that I did not remove in the nooks of the non-skid will melt by Tuesday, launch day!

It is funny how if I wash my truck it will rain in the summer or snow in the winter. Well this is the second year in a row that I have removed the cover on the boat and we are hit with a somewhat major snow storm. At least I did not go in the water yet, otherwise I would have had to stay near the boat to keep shoveling it out to prevent it from sinking. I know during some of the past few snow/ice storms this year the Sea\\Tow guys have been very busy. Hopefully the weather will calm down after tomorrow and we can get the ’07 fishing season underway. Only 6 days till winter flounder!

Unless you are a duck! Well with the wind howling and the rain coming down in buckets we decided to stay tied up at the dock this weekend. As some of you know I don’t usually miss too many trips due to weather. Unfortunately this time of year there are not too many species lurking in the rivers and bays. Winter flounder are the main catch right now and don’t cooperate with murky water and cloudy skys. I did however get to work on more jigs for the upcoming fluke season. Got a bunch prepared to be painted in various paterns like bunker, herring, spearing and standard white.

This weekend looks like it id going to blow hard on Saturday as well as T-storms and then pretty much rain and T-storms all day on Sunday too. I was hoping to fish a winter flounder tournament on Saturday and possibly try out my new bunker spoon rods as well. Got them all rigged up today with 200 yards of 50# mono backing, 300 feet of 40# monel wire marked at 150′, 200′ and 250′ topped off with a 12 foot 50# fluoro leader. I guess I have to wait till next weekend unless there is a huge change in weather in the next 24 hours or so.

Well NOAA was not far off with their forecast and it was real snotty outside. One guy from my marina went out for a sea trial and said it was 5′-7′ with heavy chop. I decided to get some work done on the boat. I got the speakers installed in the cockpit and the pilothouse so we will now have tunes for wreck fishing!