The main attention of the boats of the Beach Haven Charter Fishing Association has shifted to striped bass. Captain Fran Verdi of "The Dropoff" has been finding his share. He had an open boat trip with Mitch from NJfishing.com who was joined by Pete from the bassbarn.com and his friend. They got a late start due to the extremely low blow-out tide. They cleared the inlet and worked their way up the beach trolling umbrella rigs finding one slammer bluefish. After getting a report the inlet had fish, they turned around and went back. They found a slow bite and went back trolling with little success. They moved to the reef for some sea bass and tog. They left the reef and tried anchoring up in the inlet with clams tossed into a rip. Within minutes the first striper was boated. In all they landed 8 Stripers and kept two. The inlet seemed loaded with bass with many of then being short.
Captain Dave Wittenborn of the "Compass Rose" has been fishing in the Sandy Hook area and says the fall bass run there lived up to its reputation over the past He trolled north out of Sea Bright to the Shrewsbury Rocks and found only blues in the five pound range. They decided to run over to the NY side of the Ambrose Channel and set up in 30-feet of water. Using clam bellies, their first bass measured 30-inches and weighed in at 10-pounds. After landing a few fish, skates and sharks moved in and the tide slowed. As they headed in they spotted bird action between the channels and decided to go have a look. It was an all out bass blitz with constant action in the 24-28-inch range for the next couple of hours. After tiring of reeling in fish they headed in for good.
Meanwhile, the "Miss Beach Haven" and Captain Frank Camarda did some bottom fishing last weekend and found good fishing. They started off inshore with pretty much drop and reel fishing on mostly black fish and a couple of porgies and some short sea bass. They moved into 75-feet of water and found some jumbo porgies and a lot of sea bass with a keeper ratio of 10 to 1. Billy and his nephew from the south east fishing club stayed with clams on this drop they filled a 5 gallon bucket with keepers not easily done. The spiny dogfish were relentless on the clams and sea bass bad.. Pool winner today was Jerry L from Medford with a 4lb tog. The "Miss Beach Haven will be doing a 14-hour offshore wreck trip on Veterans Day, November 11. The boat sails at 3 am. and reservations are required. The trip is limited to 22 passengers.
Additional information on the association can be found at www.BHCFA.com