Don't Believe the Weatherman

Despite the gale warning we wanted to give blackfishing a shot. Worst case we figured we would just turn around in the inlet and go to the diner for breakfast. I got down to the boat at 5:15, all the flags in the area were limp, and proceeded to brush the snow off the dock. Then brushed off the boat, some of which we saved for the cooler...nothing like free ice! Got the gear setup, extra anchors on the bow and left the dock at 6. Broke the inlet at 6:30 to a flat windless ocean as we suspected. Just a very light 1-2' ground swell. Ran up to Elberon Rocks for some inshore black fishing.

Tied up on the first spot in 30' of water around 7. It was so calm it was hard to come tight at first. Around 8 a light breeze picked up and kept us tight over our spot.

Very slow for the first half hour, only one short but as the haze cleared a bit and the water temp went up a degree the bite picked up and for the next 2.5 hours we had a halfway decent pick of keepers and shorts.

Fished till about 11 and headed in as the wind started gusting to about 15 knots almost due west. Seas were still a ground swell with maybe 6" of chop on top. We looked around for bait and birds but did not see any and decided to head in.

We were glad we decided to at the very least take a ride to the inlet and look and see if it was fishable and the morning certainly was. Total for the day was four for the table to 4.5 lbs and 8 shorts. It was Tommy's first blackfish trip and he fed them quite well for most of the trip till he started to develop the touch and ended the day catching the biggest fish.