Weakfish still giving captains reason to seek them

Posted by the Asbury Park Press on 09/28/07
BY JOHN GEISER
CORRESPONDENT

The gaps in the Raritan and Barnegat Bay weakfish fisheries call into question just how healthy the stocks really are, but anglers are still catching fish.

Some surprising action developed here and there in the bays and the ocean this week, and there will be more as the water cools. The possession limit is still eight fish with a 13-inch minimum. This will change to six at 13 inches Oct. 1.

Capt. Don Hager Jr., skipper of the Sea Fox out of Atlantic Highlands, experienced the weakfish drought in Raritan Reach as did everyone else recently, but the fishery has bounced back to his satisfaction.

"We had over 150 fish for 17 people today (Wednesday)," he said. "My ads may say bottom fishing, but I'm sticking with the weakfish as long as I can. They were as thick as bees, and they were almost all keepers."

Hager said the fish responded to sandworms, and they hit without hesitation. Interestingly, the fish ignored bucktails, jigs or other artificials.

Most of the weaks caught on the Sea Fox measured from 17 to 22 inches. John and Joyce Lind, Cliffwood Park, caught their limit of eight fish each by noon.

Hager said a couple of bluefish were taken on the boat, but 99 percent of the action was from weakfish. Weakfish, for all of their beauty and frailness, can be voracious feeders at times and not discriminating in diet. They will, depending on their mood, hit almost anything an angler puts in front of them.

Sandworms, shrimp, shedder crabs, squid strips, Fin-S Fish, Fishbites, jelly worms — these are offerings usually associated with weakfish today, but there are many more.

We recall the late summer and fall of 1984 when fishing for weakfish was so good in Raritan and Sandy Hook bays and in the ocean. Artificials were the thing then.

At that time, the Nordic Eels or Tiger Tails were the choice and they would work today, if look-alike natural bait was present. These metal-headed lures with tube tails cut to imitate sand eels were deadly when bounced along the bottom or retrieved or jigged at varying speeds.

Red was one of the hottest colors with amber taking a lot of fish. Yellow also produced. One-ounce sizes were favored, but heavier models were used when conditions warranted.

Weakfish are unique fish in many ways, one of them frustrating. They can be extremely finicky feeders, sometimes ignoring everything put in front of them as they did last week in Raritan Reach.

A good rule is to fish artificials slowly for weaks. They will not blast a lure the way bluefish will, though they are frequently feeding at the same time.

It is wise to keep an eye out for blues on top and then fish deep for weaks; the two are frequently found in that top-bottom situation as they were off Island Beach and Long Beach Island at times this week.

Blues, incidentally, are tough on weakfish. Often an angler will bring a big weakfish up through a school of blues only to find the tail of the weakfish bitten off. When fishing menhaden chunks for weaks, you have to get the bait down through the bluefish schools as quickly as possible.

Sandworms, a traditional weakfish bait, have been far and away the top offering in Raritan Bay this year. They will work in the surf as well.

You can rig them on a fish-finder rig or drift them in the tide with a light ocean bottom rig made up with a three-way swivel, bank sinker, 36- to 48-inch leader and No. 1 or 1/0, cut-shank beak hook or simply with the same hook and leader with a clinch sinker and two-way swivel.

When impaling the sandworm, run the hook in the mouth of the sandworm and thread the worm up the hook, bringing the point outside the body to expose it and the barb and allowing the worm to lie back straight along the shank and stream naturally back.

When anchoring and fishing for weakfish with sandworms, anchor upcurrent from known productive grounds or where fish are noted on the fish-finding gear and free-spool the worm out in the current.

Sandworms can also be trolled for weakfish. Impale the sandworm on the hook of a willow leaf spinner and, if necessary, add a bead chain keeled trolling sinker. The ticket for this is a small outboard or electric trolling motor that can be throttled down to a crawl, much as in fluke trolling.

This method is best at sundown or early morning when the grounds are quiet.