Litton's Fishing Lines: Barnegat Inlet Keeper Fluke and Tog

The first thing I noticed was the relative low water level and my ability to see bottom beyond the jetty rocks. Last August, tide was high and there was some water on the rocks. We strapped on Korkers. Yesterday, we had Korkers but never put them on. I wondered about the fluke's willingness in such "shallows," but I couldn't argue with the several or more keepers on stringers, caught by more than several others out there fishing. The fish had been lowered between rocks so you could see stringer lines leading down into brine pools underneath. No one was fishing the inlet side this time. Blackfish (tautog) are out of season, but you can take home triggerfish and sheepshead, though they're much less commonly caught.

Fred had raked a bunch of sand fleas or mole crabs. He tried a spot recommended to him and caught only a small handful there, so we rode on to Loveladies (Long Beach Island) and found them abundant. Fred told me even fluke and stripers are getting caught on them, due to a lack of forage fish in the water.

Nevertheless, I fulfilled my habit of buying killies. Fred offered me Gulp! to use instead. That's what he's been catching his fluke on, but I like using killies. In August, I bought a pint for $10.00. At the same bait shop, I paid $15.00 for a pint yesterday. (Imagine if wages inflated like that. Well, it's a tough world.)

Casting on the ocean side for fluke, we began hooking up immediately. I felt a little disoriented, as if Fred's Fishbites Gulp! knockoffs should somehow be a little less productive than killies, but he was picking off little fluke left and right. Mine were bigger. The first one was about a half inch under the new 17" legal size. He was more than doubling my count.

Blackfish weren't quite as abundant as they were in August, but bigger. My 17-incher put up such a fight that, for a long while, I thought I had hooked a 10-pound fish. It didn't take drag the way a hybrid striper does or a Jack Crevalle in Florida. (The less than four-pounder I caught in the Gulf took longer runs than a hybrid of the same size would.) The tog was hard to move. For a maybe somewhat less than three-pound fish, the resistance was powerful. Fred felt it with his 17-incher, too. He also caught a 15-incher and a few others.

Fred's caught tog as big as 4.4 pounds off the rocks, but never dogfish until yesterday. He caught two or three and I caught two.

In total, Fred caught 21 fluke, no keepers. My total of seven included an 18 1/2-inch keeper. He finally gave the killies a shot when the pint had nearly emptied. He put a killie on one hook, a Gulp! on another, catching five little fluke that way. Not one took the killie. So now there's some evidence that my prejudice in favor of live killiefish is just my preference and not that of the fish, though it leads one to wonder why I caught the bigger. A fish took the very biggest killie of the assortment, too, though I never knew if it was a nice fluke or a shark. Whatever it was felt heavy for a sec.

It's a tough world and I'd rather get on with it than complain. We fished more than five hours, and it wasn't until I became aware of our need to hike out that the heft of the ocean environment began to grow on me. Not in the negative way of breaking through defenses and being something to feel imposing, but of dissolving defenses so I myself merge, enlarge, and awaken to blissfulness. So I felt a little sad, knowing we had to leave, but mostly just ready to stick to the plan, which trumps all else. It was a hell of a hard walk on the beach to Fred's SUV, too, but once we got into that vehicle, I began talking. I had been trying to talk as we walked, but the stress of boots in the dry sand was too much.

There's another side to life. You have to pass through the Great Outdoors to get there.