While the striped bass and big bluefish have yet to make their appearances as far south as Beach Haven, some of the local captains of the Beach Haven Charter Fishing Association have managed to keep busy catching a variety of fish.
Captain John Koegler of the "Pop's Pride" tried a trip looking to troll up some bonito and some false albacore. He managed to boat a half dozen nice sized bonito, but saw no sign of false albacore. Since the bonito taste much better than the albacore, he had a happy crew. On the way back in he stopped and tried some bottom fishing. He said that he was very surprised to hook up with a goodly number of tinker mackerel. Although the fish were too small to keep, Captain John said he found the mackerel presence to be a positive sign.
Captain Carl Sheppard of the "Starfish" took out a party put together by Mark Giunta of Somerdale, NJ. They left Morrison's Marina and headed out to the 15 fathom line looking for bonito. They trolled with little luck until south of Atlantic City when they started running into bait balls, some of which stretched from the bottom almost to the top of the water column. As they went over one bait ball, a rod which was running about 30-feet down had a light hit. As the fisherman started to pull the fish in, the rod went double and the line started screaming out. All other lines were pulled in and Captain Carl backed the boat back to the fish. With the light tackle it took some 40-minutes to get the fish to the boat. It took two gaffs and three strong men to bring a 61-inch thresher shark up high enough to attach a tail rope. The shark weighed close to 150 pounds and had a tail length of 58-inches. The group then caught some bonito on other bait balls before trying some bottom fishing on some nearby wrecks. They caught some large black sea bass which unfortunately were out of season along with some porgies and tinker mackerel.
For additional information the Beach Haven Charter Fishing Association, go to the Association's website at www.fishbeachhaven.com
