Fun in Little Egg Harbor fishing fluke. I always forget to look at the bouy numbers, but I remembered the first shoal we stopped at from 1980 when I nailed a 20-inch fluke using a bass casting rod and a jig, just bouncing it down from shallow to deep as tide fell swinging bait from the bar into the slough.
We shot across and found an excellent sluiceway where acres of water got diverted by outgoing tide around the sand, increasing current dramatically and funneling food to fluke. That's where we caught all the fish. Right in the current from maybe six feet to 10-feet deep, drifting through.
Light tackle did the trick. Can you believe we used the same size six hooks I do for smallmouths? Just hook a killie through the lips after tying eight-pound test fluorocarbon (resists tooth abrasion) to a small barrel swivel with a 3/4-ounce steel slip sinker on the main line. Always use alternatives to lead when using a sinker this light because some diving birds ingest small stones as part of the digestive process. We had bottom contact 20 feet down using light line.
We had a boat full of people and everyone caught at least a sea robin. Sam did mention circle hooks and just maybe my size 6 plain shanks are not optimal, although none of our fluke swallowed any.
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