Ok kiddies! Its the heart of the Summer...and the heart of the season....and action is heating up on all the fronts.....
This past week we found blues that still had their roe in them so I cant say I'm 100% positive they finished their breeding cycle....but action has been fairly consistent, day or night...some days we find them right outside the inlet on jigs...some days we sail South...some days its a bit North...some days we head off the beach and bait them up on the edge of the Mud.....it might take a bit of effort but they are there! Blues been slow to slow pick 7/25 so been leaning toward fluke fishing
Fluking has still been pretty steady if you want to have a lot of fun catching 14-16 inch fish....on one trip this past weekend my mates did everything they could possibly do to stretch the damned size: close one eye and pretend the ruler said "17".....use the metric system.....put 2 fish together and swear it was one fish....it became so ridiculous that out of 30-40 fish on a drift, a GOOD drift was 2 legal fish.....it just didnt matter!
In tight to the beach if we have the right conditions I can place the boat on a drift and watch every single rod on the boat start dancing for 30 minutes straight.....no joke! The biomass of fish there is insane, and I kick myself in the ass thinking that when I was a bit younger they were ALL keepers! If I head off the beach a-ways, out to the deeper hills and snags, the keeper ratio improves quite a bit butthe numbers caught arent as dramatic because thats where all the boats are working these days.......
And now the rumor mill (its not really a rumor..its reality) is that our recreational quota will be CUT IN HALF for 2007 and beyond, which will pretty much put an effective end to fluke charters unless we fight now for our rights! I am urging each and every one of my readers...my loyal charters..to call, email, or just write to your Congress rep and Senator and tell them how much this fishery means to you...and how upset you are that next year might see a 2 month season...or very small bag limits and excessive size limits.....cutting a quota in HALF does NOT mean we will go from 16.5 to 17 inches alone!!!!!!!!!!!!
I'm not saying we have to keep every damned fish....hell I'd be happy if I could get a nice bag of filets for every person in a charter without wasting 3-400 shorts!!!!! We arent talking rocket science here folks!!!!! Lets all work to establish a fair....REASONABLE....size and bag limit so that everyone has at the VERY LEAST, an opportunity to take some filets home for dinner........
If even half of my charters are willing to spend 10 minutes writing to their representatives, then by my figures at least a couple thousand letters will make their way across some Senators desk and its time for the charter industry to flex our last bit of muscle to save our fishery from the knucklehead politicians who want to ruin it!
Tight Lines!
Capt. Gene
