Where’s the keepas?”-Fishing report-06-18-10- By Bob Misak
The past few days were hit or miss out there on the beach, and although there were some bass caught, nobody brought in any 50 lb. fish or anything like that. The fluke are literally carpeting the bottom of the surf on the north end, but the keeper ratio is like “0 for all the fish you can catch”. Seriously, anglers are hard pressed to find keeper fluke again, but that doesn’t mean they’re not there. The JCAA held its yearly fluke tournament last weekend, and the biggest fish was 10 lbs. There were also a good number of 6 to 9 lb. fish come to the scales, and a couple of those came out of Barnegat bay. So if you do your homework and be persistent you will catch bigger fluke. Spots are a deadly weapon for those bigger fluke, as well as small snapper blues. Weirdly enough the bigger fish are being slammed on little Spro bucktails with a spearing or a chunk of squid on it, probably due to the fluke that are still feeding on shrimp. The guys that are still bass fishing are telling me of big blues in the 10 to 12 lb. range as well as some bodacious dog sharks up to 15 lbs. This is on the night bite, except for the bay where the blues are holy terror day or night.
Outside in the ocean the bass fishing isn’t terrible, and I watched a couple dudes drift the south jetty with live bunkers and boat two really nice bass, then take off. The guys that are catching big fluke in the ocean are making the trek to the ridge, and some big flatties are coming in off the head boats. Sea bass fishing is going strong, and some of the fish are pushing the four lb. range. There have been reports of threshers coming within a couple miles of the beach, and guys are starting to catch some nice sharks, as seen in Fisherman magazine’s pic of a 485 lb. whip-tail coming in already. That fish was caught well off shore, and a beauty it is.
Out on the jetty some guys are doing pretty well buck tailing bass, and on the incoming tide there is a real nice rip of water out there. I fished the cove on the right side for fluke and well over 30 fluke one day, and believe it or not, the only fish that flopped back in the water was the one keeper I’d have caught, but what a blast catching all those fluke. I can’t say if that’s a good sign or a bad one with all that belly aching going on about all those 17 inch fluke around. Anyway, Barnegat light bait and tackle is stocked up with the basics, killies, fresh bunker and clams, green crabs, and plenty of other essentials to hook you up out on the sea or the sands. Let us not forget the garbagefish.com junk fish tourney on July 1st, with awesome prizes for the largest Skate, sea robin, or dog shark. By the way, has anyone even seen a sea robin yet? I haven’t. And speaking of July 1st, one tog will be allowed per angler, and I’ll tell you this; the jetty is “jammed” with fat blackfish. So we’ll see you at BLBT, and good luck and great fishing to everyone. Be safe.
Barnegat Light Bait and Tackle
1501 Bayview Ave.
Barnegat Light, NJ
(609) 494-4566
Website www.barnegatlightbaitandtackle.com
Email info@barnegatlightbaitandtackle.com