Tog Fishing In Full Swing

[captadamnj]

November has been a good month of tog fishing. We have not seen as many big fish (over 5 pounds) as we had seen by this time last year, but the water was much warmer, as well. The water temp finally dropped 5 degrees last week which slowed the bite for a day, but the bite is back on and we saw better fish this past weekend, a lot of "whitechins".

We got in 2 more licks on the sea bass before switching over to full time tog fishing -

11/12 - Limit of sea bass for 6-persons aboard for open boat trip. Perhaps the best trip of the year for quality and quantity, with lots of 16"+ fish. Got a limit of tog (1/person) to finish out the day, with most of the keepers over 17".

11/13 - Limit catch of sea bass for the Leong party. Even better quality fish than yesterday, although less fish overall. Conditions were snotty. But how can you beat a limit of sea bass to near 4 pounds? Conditions didn't let us try for the tog.

And so ended the sea bass "season", as I could then switch my focus to tog fishing inshore. I was glad to not have 15-18 mile runs anymore, based on the weather the past 6 weeks. Some of the weather information on which I rely comes from buoys stationed off of Northern and Southern New Jersey and maintained by the National Data Buoy Center. On their website, they maintain historical data up for the previous 45 days. I took this data and lumped the Northern and Southern data together and came up with the following "hourly average" numbers for conditions on the ocean over the 6 week period from the first week of Oct. through mid-Nov.

Average Wind Speed - 18.7 mph (16.3 knots)
Average Wind Gusts - 22.9 mph (19.9 knots)
Average Wave Height - 5.1 feet

If not for the excellent fishing, more days than not probably wouldn't have been worth going.

So here are the tog reports from November. I've fished every fishable day on the ocean the past 2 weeks.

11/15 - Brendan Sheehan party kicks off the tog season with a limit catch with 3 fish around 5 pounds.

11/17 - Mark Zuccarello party braved the wind for a limit catch of tog to 7 pounds. We finished out the day jigging bluefish and Joey put a 26 pound striper in the boat.



11/18 - Another cold/windy one for the Fred Verdi party, bringing home 45 fish, 80% tog and 20% nice sea bass to 2 pounds.

11/19 - A limit catch for the Sutphen party, including the first "slob" of the season, a 25", 9 lb. fish captured by the Captain.



11/20 - Limit catch for the Paul Reyburn party (paul708) to 5 pounds with another 1/2 dozen nice sea bass.

11/21 - Took my pop and some of his friends today, and got them 42 tog to 6 pounds and 18 nice sea bass, plus another near 2 pound scup.

11/25 - A couple days off due to the weather, resulting in a 5 degree water temp. drop. Fish were shut down inshore. Moved off a bit and found them. Had to pick through small fish to put 34 fish in the boat for the 5 person group. Mostly tog to between 5 and 6 pounds with a few sea bass still. When the bass are finally gone, then we'll get to the good tog.

11/26 - Another day to let the tog get acclimated to the changing water temp., and the better ones bit today. Limit catch for the Sutphen party to 8 1/2 pounds. Look at those whitechins!



11/27 - Limit catch for Paul Reyburn party again to between 5-6 pounds. Lots of whitechins again (just no slobs) and most all fish kept didn't even require measuring.

11/28 - Rounded up a few guys last minute to get in one more lick before the weather goes sour for the middle of the week. Another limit catch to 7 pounds, with many 5 pound class fish.

That will be it for this month with the weather. Hope to be back at it before the end of the week. As always, full reports and lots more pictures at www.karenannii.com.

[paul708]

Great fishing with Capt adam...Back again on sunday

[Gandy Dancer]

Adam anything open on 12/18??