Saturday - outside of the hook

[bgreene]

Actually started out of Belmar, and up to the Shrewsbury Rocks at sun up but didn't find action. Saw one Striper caught. Lots of boats trolling and jigging but not happening.

Took a ride north up to look around the northern tip of the mud hole at 130', but ultimately set up on the hook inside of the mud in approx. 45' with nice structure and marks.

Wham, right away, double headers of Seabass ranging in size up to 19" - the biggest I ever caught . Furious action during the last of the incoming, while one of the two poles I had working a bunker chunk behind my chum bag ripped drag a few times on blues. Buddy on board lost a few before boating one, and we wound up just keeping two blues to about 12 lbs, with 6 or so fish on.

Total on SeaBass was around 25 fish, throwing the smaller ones back while the big ones were much bigger.

So.........the slow fishing day turned out to be a great fishing day.

[Gr8ful Fish]

Nice job & nice report.

Enjoy those sea bass fillets.

I'll be working on collecting a few of those myself tomorrow, so thanks for the news.

- Gr8ful

[Squid Vicious]

Went out today kinda late this morning with no particular plan. Found some short bass on some structure in the Sandy Hook area. Saw a huge fleet near Roamer, lots of fishing, not much catching.

Headed over to the NY side around 9:30 to check out some bird action. Albies all over blitzing. Took awhile to dial them in, but we got over 10. Half of them my buddy got on the fly. The rest I got on a light spinning outfit intended for smallmouth. It seemed like we were the only ones hooking up. There was a sizable fleet of boats out there, lots of people dunking clams and throwing giant pencil poppers at thrashing albies. It was pretty silly, all I saw caught all day by anyone other than us was 1 dogfish and a number of searobins. I might be young AND stupid, but even I can tell the difference between Albies and Bass. (albies fight waaay harder;)).

Oh, almost forgot, on our way over I picked up a keeper sized Hudson river bass(covered in sores and lice)

Big F-U to the mongoloids in the Tracker ski boat running all over our lines and the fish. You could definitely tell you were in NY out there today, and I don't mean that as a compliment.

Great day. Maybe I'll post some pics later.

[bgreene]

Thanks for your reports. I really had no idea I would score that well on Seabass without being " on a wreck" and with so many boats around us.

We got lucky and anchored over the perfect spot as the Seabass ranged in size to typical to the big humpbacks !

That whole fishery from Raritan around the hook to the mud and south to the Rocks is one of the best around ........

[Squid Vicious]

Thanks for your reports. I really had no idea I would score that well on Seabass without being " on a wreck" and with so many boats around us.

We got lucky and anchored over the perfect spot as the Seabass ranged in size to typical to the big humpbacks !

That whole fishery from Raritan around the hook to the mud and south to the Rocks is one of the best around ........

I agree, i've fished out of Cape May for years, It really made me appreciate what we have up here. I can catch a 6lb fluke off the dock here, and the sandy hook rip has produced bigger bass for me than the CM rip

Enjoy those seabass, they are delicious I may go out in a bit and catch dinner!