“Bass-a-thon-On! - Fishing report-10-16-10-By Bob Misak-1.jpg


“Bass-a-thon-On! - Fishing report-10-16-10-By Bob Misak
Well, the first week of the Long Beach Island surf Classic started out as it has in the past few years with a monster cow being slapped up on the scales for all of us to chase. First Ryan Dellane set the pace with a 31 lb. fish to get things rolling, but Courtland Foos really smacked the beehive with a 47 bruiser of a fish on Friday morning. What a fish, too. You can catch a look at it on lbift.com- week one. That one there is going to be a hard nut to crack, and congratulations to Courtland on a well deserved fish. He puts his time in for sure. So as mentioned in last report, that early run of bass are here and a bunch of 15 to 18 lb. fish are up on the board as well, with derby regular Randy Matlack doing well with three bass up on the scales and Rob Vallone had a nice 22 lb. fish weighed. I had to write all that bass stuff because there isn’t any bluefish stuff to write. None. Nothing. I think the slammer blues will roll in by next weekend for sure, and then the fall run will go full bore. I definitely have to stick my neck out and say that this is, in fact, the year that a 50 lb. fish takes it. Time will tell, and there is seven weeks left. There are still some kingfish in the surf as well, and the old timers were loading up on them a few days ago over at Coast Ave. The sixth st. dock gave up some quality tog a few days ago, and I saw at least three fish in the 6 to 8 lb. range, and caught a keeper each time I went over there. Every other day or so someone catches a nice bass over there too, and I whacked me a 20 lb. fish a week or so ago over there. The end of the south jetty is full of togs as well, but I must warn you that the dunes have eyes, and you should probably heed to the one fish limit. I’ve seen some really high fines given out more than once in the past few weeks, and by high I mean thousands. Yes, thousands. Guys are catching plenty of bass off the south jetty on eels at night, and the boats are slamming bass on spots all day long. The average fish is 30 inches long with an occasional fish breaking the 20 lb. mark. Most of the bigger bass, though, are coming from Holgate. No worries though, the 14th st. sand bar and the jetty will soon give up some bruisers, and Josh and Nick are at the ready with Fresh bunker, clams and big hooks for you. They even have plenty of green crabs for togging and a ton of spots, which are the bait of choice right now because the bay was full of them this month and the bass are feeding on them. So we’re into the fall striper run, and the head boats are still slamming great bluefish just outside and they’ll smack into the beaches as soon as those bunker pods up in Bay head get down this way. So as it stands right now, you’ll need a 50 to win the derby, and I know a lot of sharp bass guys who just might be the ones to do it. Good luck and great fishing to everyone, and hit it hard and you will reap the reward! And as always, be safe out there. By the way, Basil is M.I.A. He took off huntin’ again.

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