Fished with Jimmy T. and my brother, John, aboard John's new boat "Rod Bender II."
Started fishing for fluke on the Leonardo Flats, but we had limited drift and no keepers. Moved over to the Belford Flats which yielded 3 keepers for me from 16.75-17.25" and a single 17" keeper for Jimmy. We all had a bunch of shorts that were just short of legal. Baits were tube squid/spearing or fresh bluefish strips.
Ran down the beach to the Shrewsbury Rocks where we got plagued with spiney dogfish. Jimmy landed a single keeper fluke at 18.5" and John landed a single keeper sea bass. However, it was tough to get anything worthwhile, since the doggies were on our baits as soon as they would hit bottom.
Found tons of schoools of bunkers, so we went to work snagging. Filled the livewell, and lost 2 bass that struck snagged baits as they were being brought to the boat.
Tried anchoring and chunking the bunkers, but we got mauled by 8-10 pound gator blues and more of those @#$%^&* dogfish.
Ended up drifting the live bunkers off the beach in the area of Highlands Bridge. The blue fish were reducing our live bunkers to heads as fast as we could get them out. I caught and released a ~30 pound bass drifting just a head, and I also caught a second 12 pounder which John kept.
On our way back to the barn at the end of the day, the winds died down a bit, and the seas flattened. During the calm period, we must have passed at least 15-20 different huge schools of bunker. They were spread from the beach out to ~1 mile almost continuously from the False Hook all the way South past the Shrewsbury Rocks.
After we got the boat out, cleaned up and got on our way, we got to watch the lightning fireworks display as the severe thunderstorms moved in quickly.
- Gr8ful
P.S. Was anyone at the Atlantic Highlands public marina around 5:00 AM? ... If so, did you get to see the guy whom launched his new F350? We heard about it, but we were a little late so we missed the whole "show."
