The boats of the Beach Haven Charter Fishing Association have been finding success on a number of fronts.
Captain Adam Nowalsky from the Karen Ann II reports this is the peak of the spring sea bass fishing. He says the number of keepers is limited only by how fast you can get your line back down to the bottom.
Some of his recent charter highlights include the Robert Wilson charter with 75 keeper sea bass including a number of 3.5 to 4 lb. fish. On the Safa group's half-day charter some 50 bluefish and sea bass were boated with a 5-pound sea bass in the mix.
Other groups included Zuccarrello with 55 keepers, Preczewski with a nice mix of sea bass and released blackfish to 10-pounds, Tom Siciliano with 75 keeper sea bass, Jim Sutphen with 90 keeper sea bass, and Mike Dahm's half-day charter, with 20 keeper sea bass out of over 100 caught.
Captain Adam said there was an improvement in the number of keepers on the fluke scene this week. All fluke fishing remains in the back bays, with the 50-degree ocean water temp still too cold for a good fluke bite.
Captain Carl Sheppard had two good parties over the weekend. On Saturday the Capanna party started with wreck fishing and boated 42 sea bass in less than an hour. Captain Carl got a tip about a large school of slammer blues in the 10-12 lb range about 22 miles further out. The fish were on the bottom, in 80-100 feet of water. He used trolling valves to reduce the speed to under two knots and used a pound of weight with the pony tails to get them to bite. Action was nonstop for 4 hours although they only kept a few.
On Sunday Captain Carl had the Tom Phillip's party along with a couple of off duty captains-Vic Bertotti and Tom Masterson. They fished in 60-70 feet of water and drifted a number of wrecks. They ended up catching over 80 sea bass, but were plagued by spiny doggies.
Captain Fran Verdi on the Dropoff had an open boat trip on Saturday. He had no luck looking for bunker and tried anchoring at Wreck Inlet for striped bass but had no luck. He then headed for the reef and some wreck fishing. That action was drop and reel with double headers every pass. For one and half hours they hammered away at the fish and were able to put 15 keepers in the box out of over 50 fish caught. He did see some pods of bunker at the reef but no bass under them.
Captain Fran also ran open boats Sunday and Monday and once again tried to find bass but to no avail. On Sunday his group managed 17 keepers at the Garden State South Reef. On Monday he had John Henderson out, and they found a real hot spot on the Garden State South Reef with John putting 11 keepers in the box.
Captain Dave Wittenborn on the "Compass Rose" fished the LBI Cup, a striper tournament held by the Beach Haven Marlin & Tuna Club. He first looked for bunker with no success and chunked bunker at Wreck Inlet in the white water. When that produced no action, Captain Dave headed north and tried trolling an umbrella rig and a bunker spoon. They managed one knock down in about an hour on the troll. Then a spell in Little Egg Inlet chunking those rips resulted in just some very large dogfish.
On Sunday Captain Dave fished in Great Bay for fluke using Gulp Minnows and squid. He had plenty of action but all the fish were short.
The "Miss Beach Haven" with Captain Frank Camarda had a good weekend on the ocean. Fishing both shallow and deep water, they found a lot of life on the wrecks and reefs but had to weed through the shorts to get keepers. Despite a keeper ratio of 10 to 1, most anglers took home dinner. Joe Muir was high hook Saturday and Scott of Beach Haven on Sunday, all quality fish. The pool winner Sunday with a 3-pound sea bass was 10-year-old Richard.
Additional information on the association can be found at www.BHCFA.com
