Fellow Anglers,
Wanted to give you a heads up report on some information that was passed down to me yesterday while I was at my slip doing work on the boat.
There were sightings of massive schools of "bunker" moving around Sandy Hook from about the Highlands Bridge all the way north to the Sandy Hook channel. That's good news..........now let's get those fish to move into the area bays and Shrewsbury and Navesink Rivers. That also tells me that there should be new Stripers coming from the south following them in. Let's hope so for my Striper charters!
Also heard from very reliable sources that yesterday was a very good day for some "cow" Stripers around the Sea Girt to Asbury Park ocean stretch. Fish caught in the 40 and 50 lb. class. That's some hell of a run for me, but if those fish do migrate up here then it's that much better, but if they stay south of me for the next week or two, then it means some long boat rides to the fish. Oh well, we'll see what happens as I will monitor this very closely over the next few days.
It seems that my fluke charter on opening day, the 23rd, did better than some other boats did. Guys who tried to go "outside" got banged around and had to return "inside" because of the stiff east winds where I was basically all morning. My charter had a good steady pick of fish using sand eels and squid combo, and a real killer was "squid heads"....WOW! We also noticed that the longer the squid bait was cut, the more hits we got. One other bit of advice (I hate to use that word) but I had my "drift sock" deployed ALL DAY to slow down my drift by more than a knot. Other boaters in the area who didn't have a drift sock flew past me like I was anchored and NOT catching fish. This device is a serious fisherman's MUST HAVE instead of having to put 6-8 or even 10 ounces of lead in only 10-12 feet of water which would have been the case at Officers Row Saturday morning if we didn't have our drift sock. Not to plug Cabela's, but they sell a great drift sock in many sizes, but the one I would use for any boat 20' and larger is there 72" model with a float on one side and weights on the other for easy deployment.
We have 4 charters next week for both Stripers and Fluke so I'll keep you all informed as to how we did.
Tight Lines to all.......and Thank You to all our Brave Veteran's especially my father-in-law Perry who was a Sea Bee in the Pacific during WW2.
Capt. John