Beach Haven Fishing Good Inshore and Offshore

The boats of the Beach Haven Charter Fishing Association have been catching fish both close to the beach and offshore in the canyons. There have been some nice reports of good offshore fishing at the canyons for both tuna and mahi-mahi. Captain Lindsay Fuller of the "June Bug" fished the waters of the Lindenkohl Canyon once again and did very well. He had Ralph Hibbs and his nephew Kevin along with NJ artificial reef architect Bill Figley and friend Tom, a retired state police officer. Captain Lindsay decided to fish away from the fleet and first picked up a 160-pound bigeye. Then came small yellowfin followed by larger yellowfin, all on the troll. The party filled the fish box and headed in early. All of the fish were raised and caught in 76.5-degree water in depths between 1,800 and 3,000 feet. Captain Fran Verdi took the "Cousins" out looking for bluefin tuna. He trolled the waters around the 30 and 40-lines. He picked up several skipjack along with one nice bluefin tuna. He reports that the fluke fishing in the ocean is starting to come alive with several 4-pound fish coming to the dock. He is finding most of the fluke in the inlet but they are slowly starting to show up in the deeper water. He is fishing mostly with long squid strips and a live minnow. He has also fished some inshore wrecks for sea bass and scoring. Captain George Finck of "Sparetime" Charters had Ed Fitzpatrick and four nephews out for a nice catch of fluke in the inlet recently. Another day he took his son Steve and grandsons out for some reef fishing where they scored well on the sea bass. Captain John Koegler had the "Starfish" out on Monday and first tried drifting the inlet for fluke. They caught several throwbacks quickly, but due to the fierce greenhead fly bite, decided to head out into the ocean. They fished the Little Egg Reef and boated quite a few sea bass. T he highlight of the trip was a 21.5-inch codfish. Captain John was astounded that they would actually catch a codfish in the middle of the summer in warm water. Additional information on the Beach Haven Charter Fishing Association can be obtained at their website, www.fishbeachhaven.com