“The slow rebound”-Fishing report-11-20-09-By Bob Misak
It took a little time after this last doozie of a storm passed through for fish to start hitting the scales again in the L.B.I. surf classic. As quoted in the last write up, fish were hitting the scales as I wrote. A good number of blues came back on shore from Monday to Wednesday, with Basil Dubrosky starting things off on Monday with an 11 lb. blue dog, only to be out done by Gene Slaughter with a 12 lb. fish. But that wasn’t enough as “the sharpster” Bill Montrey who has been having a great year, weighed in a 13 lb. chopper. The bass were still lying low, with Tom Zane finding a needle in a haystack beaching an 18 lb. striper. On Tuesday more blues came in with Mike Gowan and Rich King both breaking 11 lbs and one more bass being sought out by Christian Martin at 24 lbs. even. On Wednesday my ol’ buddy and childhood hangout Bobby Gatton weighed in a 10 lb. blue, and Chris Masino also broke 10 lbs. But the fish of the week was Randy Matlack’s tournament leading bluefish, stressing the scale at 16.31 lbs! I smell a thousand dollar blue! There were still no signs of bass until Wednesday night when Dennis Stepien, another tourney regular came to the rescue with a 35.31 lb. linesider! The rest of this week is typically the week when the winning fish in the derby is entered, and according to Basil, there WILL be a 50 lb. fish weighed. Only thing is, I was dumb enough to agree with Basil, so somebody catch a 50, will ya, so me and Basil don’t look like a couple of buffoons. (Too late for that.)
In the bay there are still keeper bass being caught on a regular basis, and the mouth of Oyster creek has been giving up some decent bass. The fish up in mud channel and over by the 30 buoys are cookie cutters as well, but they are keepers at 30 to 36 inches, great for the table.
Outside guys continue to catch bass on live spots, and it is just now starting to pick up with some boats limiting on bass while either jigging Avas or floating spots. The head boats are wreck fishing for a bit now that the tog limit went up, giving them a reason to fish those wrecks. Some nice white chins at 6 to 8 lbs. are being caught, and over by the condo docks anglers continue to catch nice fish, and you can put yourself out of the weather over there. But remember it is about eight ft. down to the water, so if you don’t have a long handled net, you’ll flirt with disaster if you get a 10 lb. tog on. Usually someone over there has a long net, and those guys look out for each other. They will be glad to net a big fish for you as I have done for them and them for me in the past few months. The shop has plenty of green crabs, as well as bunker and clams for the end of the season. It ain’t over yet, there will still be big bass and blues caught for the next two weeks, so get over to Barnegat Light bait and tackle, and good luck and great fishing to everyone.
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