June 24, 2012

Well that was quite a week. First, three days of near record setting heat with temperatures in the high nineties and humidity that had us begging for mercy. Then the heat wave gets broken on Friday by one of the nastiest storm systems I've ever been out in, with 8-10 inches of rain in a couple of hours, hail the size of golf balls, sixty mile an hour winds and more cloud to ground lightning than I ever hope to see again. We hunkered down under a bridge for an hour at the height of the storm and felt the temperature drop almost thirty degrees in a matter of minutes. But everyone made it back in safely and it did break the heat, giving us a couple of beautiful summer days for the weekend.

Fluke fishing in the back bay continued to hold up well this week, although the number of keepers was a bit lower than we might have expected. The ratio of shorts to keepers seemed to hover around fifteen to one, but we had pretty consistent action on all three trips this week whenever we could find a decent drift. Hookups were pretty evenly split between Gulp baits and our custom fluke teasers, with white or chartreuse taking turns as the hot colors. Small bluefish around the inlet and on the flats provided some added rod bending action when the drift in the back bay disappeared.

Still plenty of bunker swimming around out front, but it looks like our spring striped bass run is finally over and the fish have migrated north until fall. We'll be concentrating on fluke for the next couple of months, mixing in occasional trips out to Barnegat Ridge when the bonito and false albies make their summer appearance. We still have some prime summer dates open, so now's the time to book that summer outing.



Barnegat bay Fishing Charters
220 Biscayne road
Barnegat
(609) 698-3622
http://www.barnegatbayfishing.com/
barnegatbayfishing@att.net