Sea Trout are Thinning Out

I took the girls out today...had Victoria and Mickie on board for what will probably be our last sea trout trip of the season. We left Sun Harbor Bay Club at 6:10 AM and headed up between BI and BB.

We moved around a bit till we were marking bait and fish. We did not mark the huge schools that we have in the past few weeks. I suspect this is due to the cooler water temps and the bait starting to make their run out the sea trout are also on their way out.

It ended up being a slow pick with many missed hits today. The fish seemed to be lethargic due to the drop in water temp, we read 64 when we left the dock and saw a rise in temp to 67.2. They were not taking the larger BKD's so we switched to smaller Fin-s and started hooking up more.

Also had a school very large mullet come right up behind the boat. It was a beautiful sunrise and nice day on the water. We ended the day with 5 weaks up to just over 3 pounds.

I have to admit...I was outfished. Mickie was high hook with the smallest fish of the day and the largest.

I spoke to Chrissy T on the radio and he was reporting slow action as well when we spoke I also ran into Captain Mel of Fisher Queen Charters while cleaning up poolside at Sun Harbor and then we ended the day with lunch at Osaka. Life is good!

Mid-week, Afternoon Sea Trout!

Left the dock solo from Sun Harbor Bay Club at about 15:30 (since most everyone I know works during the day) and headed up to the BI. Fist stop about 100 yards NE of the buoy had a fish on the first cast. With about a 19" boat side fumbling for the net he shook himself free. Casted out put the rod down to ready the net and while the Rat-L-Trap was sinking had another fish on. Got that one halfway to the boat and it dropped off. A few casts later same thing. Decided to lift the barbs a little at that point and made a move as I was not marking bait or fish anymore.

As the storm was approaching the bite seemed to die off. I could mark bait and fish but no takers. Tried traps, fin-s, BKD's bucktails, shads and Gulp. Once the rain stopped and the clouds cleared enough for the sun to shine through the peanuts started flipping and the weaks started feeding again.

Had about a dozen weaks in 35 minutes most around 19-21". They were feeding so aggressively they were swallowing 2" rat-l-traps.

It was a great quick trip despite the short storm. Despite having to clean the cockpit up and fillet fish I still made it to Capt. Alex's class on time this week.

Sea Trout Success!

They say third time is the charm...or was it my lucky fishing shorts? It was our third weakfish trip this season and we set out from Sun Harbor Bay Club at 6 am and headed up between the BI and BB where we had good marks on sonar. At that point we started drifting due to no wind and very little current. We were about 200 yards west of the fleet at that time of about 50 boats. After about the third cast we were into fish. From then till about 8:36 am we had non stop action.

Soon after boating a few fish the fleet moved west and increased as the morning went on to about 200. We continued our action as the fleet seemed to pick here and there. Most of the fleet were using bait, we had bait out early as well but it was not producing so we pulled the bait rods and concentrated on artificials. BKD's, Fin-S, bucktails and Rat-L-Traps all worked but the red head Rat-L-Trap was the hot lure. At one point the action was so good we had double headers on every cast.

Once in the height of the action we decided on only keeping fish 15" or larger, we limited out with almost all fish over 15" with only three being under. It was a great day on the water and a full cooler.

Not Going Deep Again...

I won't be making it offshore for another week. Due to family obligations I need to be closer than 8 hours away on a good day. Plus it is not fair to put the rest of the crew in that situation of having to rush in if a call is received. So I decided to stick close and weak fish this weekend, there is always next weekend.

We Will Keep Out Fingers Crossed

It looks like we may finally after canceling three times get to run offshore! Let's keep our fingers crossed...the longrange forecast looks pretty good for Friday into Saturday and we may finally get to run to the deep for tuna, swords, wahoo and mahi. Can't wait, it has been a long time since I have been out to the deep and can't wait to get out there again.

First Sea Trout Trip a Bust

After about 20 years I have finally targeted sea trout again. We sailed out of Sun Harbor Bay Club with it's owner Joe and his son Joey. After setting up Southwest of the 42 marker we fish right away, but they were all kings. We did also boat a cocktail blue and had a few hits and bite offs probably also blues.

After giving that a shot for a while we moved and setup off Gulf Point. We had similar results with a few kings and two dogfish. We also put out some live peanut bunker. We had several run offs and hits on them but failed to hookup. Some of the run offs had the bunker bitten in half but some did not so we think there was a mixed bag of blues and some weaks there but they both eluded us.

All in all it was a nice day on the water after the sun came out and warmed things up a little. I did hear reports of fish further to the North in the area of the BB so we will probably try up there first next week and then work our way south.

Next move...

I have been debating this week if I should move the boat south to take advantage of the sea trout fishery in the southern part of the bay. With some nasty weather forecast for this weekend it may be a good idea. I won't be going offshore, and I won't be able to get out to reef and tie up for some sea bass either due to weather. So I guess I will run her south and fish down in Barnegat for a few weeks.

Last Fluke Trip of '07

Well it was a sad day on the water with our last fluke trip of the season. All we can do is hope that next year we will not be cut back too much. I would rather see a longer season with a smaller bag limit. We have much better fishing in the fall with better quality fish.

Anyway...we left the dock at 6:11 am and were at our first stop by 7 am. We initially tried to run outside to the reef but it was a little to sporty for me (I just did not feel like getting beat up). We began in the inlet area and had a constant pick of fish from 6" to 16.5". We moved up river a little and had the same results...more shorts.

We decided to try and run outside as the wind was laying down. It had changed over from a steep chop to more of a swell so we ran out the East side of the Axel Carlson Reef. Soon after we were catching bigger fish. The first two keepers were about three pounds. We were all by ourselves for the first forty five minutes and were then joined by several smaller boats and Capt. Ron and the Miss Norma K. Then we boated a 5 lb. 6 oz. fish soon followed by a 4 lb. 10 oz. fish. We continued to make short drifts over that productive bottom and ended the day since we had to be somewhere later in the day with six solid keepers and a couple of cocktail blues.

All in all it turned out to be a great day on the water boating the largest fluke of the season...well at least when the season is open. Earlier in the year you may remember Jimmy Bananas boated a fish almost 6 lbs. I guess now we will turn to weak fishing till they leave and wreck fishing until the stripers show.

Holiday Weekend PM

Well it has been a while since my last post and I will try and piece the summer back together and fill in the gaps as best I can in the coming weeks. But as many of you know I typically avoid the holiday weekends as much I as I can. So this Labor Day weekend I decided to get some mid-season work done myself instead of having the marina do it.

I got down early to avoid the traffic and began my running around. Stopped at the boat to pickup the bad light bulb so I knew what model to buy. Then stopped at the Volvo dealer for oil and filter. What a rip off marine grade synthetic oil is at $29.99 a gallon. I know this has been debated before but unfortunately marine grade oils are slightly different and worth the extra cost in prolonging you motor's life. After that it was off to West Marine for light bulbs and then to Mark's station to pick up the oil change pump.

After changing the oil I then replaced all my dock lines with brand new lines since the old ones are now almost four seasons old. The few bucks the new lines cost is a small price to pay for piece of mind in the event of big blow this fall.

In between the maintenance I set out the killie trap and a recently purchased crab pot. The killies were quite large for the creek and quickly showed up. Crabbing was a little slow. I ended the day with 7 nice sized males, a dozen or so short males and females and two short fluke. After a little break and some food I moved onto the domestic water system. It had seemed like the system was sucking in air but after careful inspection and a little help from Tommy it was was determined it was a clogged filter that I had overlooked. Cleaned the sludge out of the filter and the system was back to normal.

With all the repairs and maintenance done it was now time to relax, enjoy the beautiful weather, good company and case of Sam Adams!