On Sunday 11/17 we hosted Steve Jones and his Megawatt crew back out on the NetKeeper for a Striper & Blackfish Combo trip. Left the dock with great expectations and confident that we would be fishing for Blackfish early after the past week of great Striper fishing.
Rounded the Hook to see bird life between the channels and a lot of boats already working with them. Didn't like the readings and highly confident that we would find fish further South, left in search of Greener pastures. Boy was I wrong. Went as far as Asbury and drifted on great readings, releasing a couple of short Bass and boated some Blues while contending with the Spiny Dogfish (and they are endagered, yeah right). Unfortuantely, we hooked up with all the Spiny Dogfish you could possibly NOT WANT, 4 to 6 at a time on the jig. Everyone I spoke with was pretty much having he same luck too. We did see some Bluefin out in 60ft of water east of Deal but nothing we could easily chase.
BY 11:30 gave the guys the option to go for Tog so we set-up in 40 feet of water on our new Capt Joe Romaniello wreck anchors. Didn't take long to get the life built. It took a while for the guys as first time toggers to get the hang of it and for a while empty hook after empty hook came back, however but by days end the guys managed to box 12 keepers to 6lbs and released over two dozen toy tog. Steve started to put on a togging clinic for the rest catching his limit. Small Green Whole Green Crabs or Whites accounted for most of the tog.
I wanted to make one last drop on the way home but I had to cut the Blackfishing short as we didn't have the right zip ties left for rigigng the reverse pull on the wreck anchor and no matter how many we stuck on, they just broke as soon as the anchor came tight. Still it is a great anchor for those looking for one. Made a final troll between the channels before heading for the barn and we hooked up with one last short bass and one bluefish. By days end we had covered over 60 miles of ocean.
Not sure if it was the Nice Weather, Moon, the blow, or the bait and just fish moved out that ended our Striper roll. Maybe I jinxed us by asking them to leave the bananas home this week. Nonetheless, the guys really worked hard and between fishing and friendly banter a had a great day out on the water.
