“Dang, its hot”-Fishing report-07-08-10-By Bob Misak
The fourth of July weekend was a decent one out on the water with the head boats loading guys up and taking them out to capitalize on the giant blues. Most big boats were traveling out about 20 miles to chum up some 15 to 18 lb. yellow eyes at night, and this was the thing to do and will continue to be the popular fishing, as it is a bit cooler out there as opposed to hitting the beach or melting yourself in the bay. This week was one of the hottest in quite a few years, and there really wasn’t too much participation out on the sands. My old friends Frank Marascia and Bob Massa fished the beach mid-week and started out with plans to find a left over bass or some blue fish schools, but ended up tossing bucktails around the sail boat mast on 10th st. The fluke are still littering the bottom of the surf, and there are very few keepers, but nobody seems to care; fishing is fishing, and if you’re already there, you catch what you can catch. Frank and Bob said they had a blast with the small fluke, catching fish on almost every cast. An occasional run of blues will run past chasing bait, and some dudes are grabbing a few out of the pack on a “swim by”.
In the bay the fishing has all but ceased with 100 degree temps keeping boats at the dock. The old timers are grabbing a few keeper fluke out of the inlet in deeper, cooler water in the mornings before the crazy traffic of boats going outside begins, and they’re the ones eating any fluke right now, unless you make the trek to the ridge with live baits. There are still blues in the bay to be had, but again, nobody in their right mind would sit out there this week!
Out on the jetty the fluke fishing is picking up with flatties moving into deeper water, and you have to have some lively killies or Gulp baits to entice these fish on an out going tide, and the shop has those available for you. The temps are supposed to go down to the low 90’s by Thursday, making it bearable to get out there and fish a little. The sea robins are moving into the inlet, a sure sign of warm water and better things to come. Speaking of sea robins, Brian Lodge of garbagefish.com is sponsoring his trash fish tourney for the next couple weeks, and the prizes are for dogfish, skates, and sea robins. The leading dogfish is, get this; 15 lbs. 5 oz! I don’t think I’ve ever seen a 15 lb. dog shark, that’s a big-un! The leading skate sits at a touch over 4 lbs, and the sea robin category is open with a 1 lb. fish in 2nd place and no third place fish weighed. For 20 bucks you can get in on the fun for two more weeks, and who knows, maybe you can grab some cash! When there isn’t much else going on, there is always some way to amuse yourself here at the Jersey shore. So Barnegat Light bait & tackle is here for you, loaded down with supplies and we’ll see you all out there this weekend, yes? July 16th is tog season, so get ready! Good luck & great fishing to everyone.

Barnegat Light Bait and Tackle
1501 Bayview Ave.
Barnegat Light, NJ
(609) 494-4566
Website www.barnegatlightbaitandtackle.com
Email info@barnegatlightbaitandtackle.com