Family day at Island Beach State Park yesterday. We always stop at Murphy's Hook House before the bridge over to Seaside, buy bait, and like last year, killies served the purpose. We caught no fluke last year, only an 18-inch striper and a few snapper blues. Over the course of seven or eight years coming here on Father's Day--except for August last year--we've caught some fair-size bluefish, but no fluke. We've caught fluke in the surf at Long Branch and Sandy Hook, including some keepers.
They weren't keepers yesterday, and word I got earlier in the summer suggested there's a lot of small ones and few to take home. Eleven to 16 inches, 12 of them, a 14-inch bluefish, and five skates. Matt didn't fish much, caught nothing, but to his credit he dove into the 66-degree water twice, which I never braved beyond my thighs.
I began by using my five-and-a-half foot St. Croix, the killies weighted by a medium split shot, fishing them in close where the water was deep with tide risen more than halfway to high level. Lost a fluke, and then got interested in my new seven-foot Speed Stick, rigging with a 3/4-ounce slip sinker, getting some distance on the cast, setting killies down five yards or so in front of the sand bar. Never went back to the light rod, but caught a number of the fish in close.
Good to hear of fish in the surf. I am heading LBI soon. Did you encounter any Cow Nose Rays? I read they were bad this year. Fred
ReplyDeleteFred, have you thought of trying eels at night?
DeleteNone of the big rays. I've never seen one. You should do very well on LBI this year. The only thing is: we found no evidence of keeper fluke. But who knows.
ReplyDeleteOk you've convinced me to try surf fishing again this year before the summer is over. Been skunked the last few times....but I gotta keep the faith. What time of day did you catch the fish? Looks pretty late in that picture. JH
ReplyDeleteThey were hitting the moment we got there around 2:30, but as always, it got more interesting near sundown.
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