Fishing was really good this week using live bait. I ran almost all trips with live bait, mackerel and pollock and it really paid off. Due to the time it would take to get to the bait areas and then catch them I extended most 4 hour trips to 5 hours, with permission from the clients. I did a few live bait trips with 3 anglers (but prefer 2) but on all 4 person trips we used cut bait.
The best day of the week was Monday, taking long time customer Mark, his daughter Amy and son in law Eric, we caught a bunch of fish including two 38.5" beauties. These were the biggest fish for the week and we only kept one releasing the other for another day. On all days but one, we caught keepers, with Friday probably the most. Scott and his daughter Nicole caught 5 keepers with a bunch of others which was a welcome experience for them as they went the day before with another charter and landed only 1 striper and a bunch of dogfish (ouch)..
Weather has been great and the fish for the most part have been cooperating. Still not seeing large schools of smaller fish but using live bait we usually don't get any fish smaller than 26" or so.
Tight lines and happy 4th of July.
Capt. Joel
www.nhsaltwaterfishing.com