Captain Carl Sheppard took several groups wreck fishing the past few days. He mostly encountered beautiful weather and plentiful black sea bass with catches over 100 fish each day except Sunday when high winds made fishing difficult for a reduced catch. He reports the fluke fishing is picking up with more keepers available in the bay and close to the beach.
Captain Fran Verdi on the "Dropoff" reports that finding bunker pods in the ocean for striped bass have been hot and cold. In his fluking action in the bay he has seen many fish coming over the rail with action on every drift. However, with a ration of 20 throwbacks to every keeper, it is work to put fish in the box. Currently his best action is on sea bass where he has been finding "drop and reel" action in 80-100 feet of water. Captain Fran had an "open boat" trip on Saturday and ran down to Atlantic City for some very good action on both short and keeper sea bass. While drifting they picked off a nice 4-pound fluke. He was using jigs with Gulp Nuclear Chicken Shrimp along with fresh bait. He has been hearing of some bluefin tuna in the offshore waters along with a good mix of very large bluefish. He has hopes of taking his sister boat, "Cousins," out soon for some of this bluefin action.
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