Navesink River Flounder 4/17

[Tunaman5]

It's shaping up here. Pulled a batch of real nice fish out of here today. 25 Lbs of mussels, 3-4 boxes of worms. All in the deep. Someone please tell me they were there and it was even better on the flats. Many thanks for a good time goes out to John, David, and Glen from Rutherford Elks # 547. Gonna do it again real soon.

[Deep C]

Aw you suck!

Funny how a "jones" can be. Here I am in the tropics between insanely good big game trips but I have one thing nagging at me... When I was a kid I used to have them black back fatties rounded up in both Navesink and Shrewsbury and just one more time I'd like to get in there and wreck a few...
I get a bit of the fluke run up ther but it aint quite the same...

[Captain Fred Archer]

Man, I love fishing for all of the flatfish, including winter flounder. And, I used to fish them in both the Shrewsbury and Navesink rivers and out into Sandy Hook Bay, over to the ammo pier, then the channel and just about the time that they petered out, I'd meet the early runs of fluke in the rip and at the Bug Light.

Of course, I loved eating both, but more importantly, I fished both rod and reel commercially. Both were important to my "Fred's Fresh Fish" business. I delivered fish X times a week to a long list of customers. They included striped bass, black sea bass, porgies, weakfish, blackfish, cod, pollack, ling, whiting and tuna. My parents didn't know it until my seventeenth birthday, but I bought and fixed up my fish delivery truck when I was fourteen, three years before I could legally drive. She was an old Ford truck that I fixed up with a buddy and spent a lot of time ducking down with just the top of my head showing when my parents would drive by (Yikes! Duck!)

The fluke were my biggest income producers and I used to catch huge numbers of them, spent many hours filleting them the pro way, with one cut per side and then delivering to my customers. I earned a lot of money doing this and it paid for much of the balance of my college expenses over and above the scholarships I got for sports and grades. They were true glory days and dem flatfish sure were part of it!

Later, when I moved to California, I discovered California halibut. The first one was a thirty pounder. I will never forget seeing him swim up alongside the boat and thinking, "My God, it's the biggest fluke ever!" before we gaffed it. Back when I was fishing fluke I came up with some techniques for catching the doormats that were worth a lot more money than the average fish, but I sure never saw one the size of that first halibut!

Okay, I'm stopping before this turns into a book. Heck, when it comes to big fluke and halibut, I've already done that! But thanks for evoking the memories of days long gone by.

"Tap, tap."

Sorry about that funky looking photo of the big Pacific halibut, but it suffered a lot of water damage and took a lot of P Shop work, which I am obviously no good at. It's the real deal, though. That thing kicked my arse on a BeastMaster 50/80.

Website www.fredarchersworldoffishing.com

[Jer]

Captain Fred Archer, I love the 213lb halibut picture! Good photoshop job, it looks cool!

[Captain Fred Archer]

Kind words, Jer. Shoulda sent the original to you and had it done right.

That thing surely was a gorilla. I was fishing with an Idian guide buddy that day named, believe it or not, Pink Floyd. We were in this little kinda ski boat thing and he had forgotten his harpoon, gaff, and .410 Snake Charmer halibut shooter in his regular boat. I used to call big halibut fishing "train fishing" because of their size and power. I was using a whole pink salmon on a huge black marlin hook to try to keep from catching the "little" hundred pounders and danged if this creature didn't nail it. Almost yanked the outfit out of my hands when he hit and took off like a rocket. We actually thought that it was a salmon shark, which are big, very fast, hard fighting fish, for quite a long time before we realized that it was indeed a train.

Like I said, that fished kicked my butt big time. When I finally got her up to the boat, Floyd realized that he had forgotten the cutlery and shooter, but he wanted the fish bad. It was a lodge record by a lot. So, he slipped the meat hook into the front, lower portion of its mouth and hung onto the short piece of rope that he had attached to it.

Well, that fish went nuts! In a flash it ran around the stern of the little boat, dragging Floyd with it. He got pinned in the corner and could go no further and that fish broke his forearm! And I mean broke it! It was bent, but no compound fracture. I don't know how he did it, but Floyd still hung onto the fish with both hands, hauled it back alongside, I helped him pull its head on the gunnel and Toyo Shimano, who was with us, tried to kill the damned thing with a little, wooden salmon gaff. Needless to say, that didn't work and only served to piss the fish off even more!

Sumbitch almost got in the tiny boat with us, which would have been disastrous - big halibut are dangerous as hell in a boat, to say nothing of the tiny one that we were in. I finally took the salmon gaff and "pithed" the fish's brain, like you do to a college bio lab bullfrog. We then (barely) got the fish in the boat, hog tied it in case it came back to life and headed back to the lodge with me driving and Floyd smiling like a Cheshire cat, but cradling his broken arm and moaning. I think he became some sort of Alaskan legend after that day.

Yeah, Pink Floyd and "Osama Bin Archer" with "them faraway eyes" with Moby Halibut, the Bone Breaking Train!

Ha! Ain't fishin' grand???

Website www.fredarchersworldoffishing.com

[Deep C]

This thread wrecked my sleep last night... Mini going to her prom, no sweat... Parts for fire control system not in yet that should have been, no sweat.

Talk about the tasy little winters though and I broke into a cold sweat... I get to bang on the flukes during my north season so theres light at the end of the tunnel for them. The winters though I miss terribly.
Whats the matter with me? I live in paradise surrounded by the big game fish of lore. Don't get me wrong, I get to craving them too before their respective seasons but the flounder bug is ringing my bell and I cant answer it...
I'm going nuts...

[Tunaman5]

This thread wrecked my sleep last night... Mini going to her prom, no sweat... Parts for fire control system not in yet that should have been, no sweat.

Talk about the tasy little winters though and I broke into a cold sweat... I get to bang on the flukes during my north season so theres light at the end of the tunnel for them. The winters though I miss terribly.
Whats the matter with me? I live in paradise surrounded by the big game fish of lore. Don't get me wrong, I get to craving them too before their respective seasons but the flounder bug is ringing my bell and I cant answer it...
I'm going nuts...

Well I hear ya Deep. This was my first REAL flounder trip in over 15 yrs and boy did it bring back memories of times gone by. We used to fill coolers in the manasquan back in the day. It was an absolute delight to catch them again. Going back out on Friday again. Thanks to all who replied.

[gradyfish265]

Heard the bite in the back of the raritan bay off south amboy has been hot as well. I splash April 29 and hope to get a trip in that day before they move out for good. Hopefully the good fishing holds up a little longer. Glad to hear fishing in the river's is good as well. We are lucky to have a great fishery like this to start off the season for us, and for many of us in this area it is a species that we took part in when younger and is responsible for our love of fishing, even if it has stemmed to bigger species.