Mixed Bag

What a day...it was a little sloppy once you got 4-5 miles off the beach early but then laid down. Actually needed a sweatshirt and jeans in the early morning. It was 58 at the dock when I left! Brrrrr....and it is August!

Anyway, started on the Manasquan Wreck and had only shorts, moved to the Valparaiso and more shorts and short sea bass.

Then moved to the NE side of the Axel Carlson. the drift was very fast and needed 8-10 ounces to hold bottom with 30# braid but it was worth it. On the first drift there I put a 21" and 23" fluke as well as a 17" sea bass in the box. The next couple of drifts produced some shorts, more sea bass and two skates.

I moved south a little bit and put two more fluke in the box a 24 and 25 incher (biggest of the day). After a few more drifts there with more shorts and sea bass and short sea bass I decided to head to a lump a little further off to the south since it was laying down. I never ended up making it to the lump.

On my way I was greeted by birds working and fish busting all over. From the distance it looked like bonito...but after a few passes it was not. I immediately hooked up a falsie. Then numerous single and double headers of monster bluefish and another falsie. I was getting ready to pack it in when something munch larger hit the green/yellow feather. I cleared the other rod, slowed the boat, increased to full and the drag was still screaming. I was at first thinking I might have finally done it and hooked into my first BFT but the typically pulsating was not there. After about 10 minutes and a brief pause of the slight give and take and I spotted the whip tail in the distance, another short run and the line parted.

The mono had been shredded above the 6' Bimini. 6' leader to feather plus 6' Bimini, mono shredded above 12' of line = big thresher! It was fun while it lasted. Actually surprised it stayed hooked as long as it did with a 150 pound mono leader.

I then heard back from a buddy in the marina that was out on the Axel Carlson curious about what I had found. I ran back to the reef to fish with them for a while and try and put them on that spot I was on earlier since they only had shorts all day but there was a dive boat on it when we returned. We moved in between some pots on another spot and immediately I put two more fluke in the box...a 20" and 22" fish. repeated drifts yielded some shorts and more sea bass.

Total for the day was one lost thresher, a dozen or so bluefish (released), two false albacore (kept for bait), 15-20 short fluke, dozens of short sea bass, 6 keeper fluke from 20" to 25" and 12" keeper sea bass. By far my most productive day bottom fishing this season.

BFT or Bust

Friday night I did not sleep much with the anxiety of going off for the first time in my boat as well as if I actually had the range to make it back.

We left the dock at 4 am and made it out to Olley's just after the sun broke the horizon. The water temp was 75.5 and there was a slight one degree break over the Northwest corner of the lump. We started marking bait and fish deep and a few suspended between 20 and 30'. We were setting out 6 rods and before all 6 were out one went off...cedar plug on the flat line. A few minutes later 12+ pound bluefish. Didn't bother us too much as some of the reports we had said you had to pick through the blues but the BFT were in and out of the are.

Got that rod reset and the others out and about 20 minutes later two rods go off. Cedar plug on the other flat line and the WWWB skirted bally. Again two more gator blues.

Reset the spread and trolled around the edges, slowed down the speed and didn't get a tap. Increased to 8kts and picked more blues. We marked bait and fish almost the whole time over and around Olley's.

Picked up and Ran to the Star after Fear Knot reported they had bluer water over there. Water temp was a little cooler at 73.5 but the water looked a whole lot better. Trolled around that area for about a half hour and didn't mark anything or have any knockdowns. So we started South to the Fingers.

Got the spread setup and again before all lines were out we had a triple. Unfortunately all bluefish again. It was a first for me to catch bluefish in that blue of water.

The wind was picking up a little and there was a storm off in the distance. Not sure exactly where Fear Knot and WillPower were but they were reporting rain. Around 10:30 we had a real hard hid that screamed line off an 80 (Due to lack of anything better to bring...none of my buddies 30's or 50's were re-lined yet this year). It also just about ripped the rod holder off the rocket launcher even with a light drag. Before anyone could grab the rod the fish was off. Jigged the rod for a few minutes and nothing...checked the bait-bally was stripped off. We circled back over that spot twice and nothing.

At this point it was getting a little snotty out...tightly spaced 4 footers and some were starting to break a little. We started in for Manasquan Inlet but as the wind picked up a little more and we were running in the trough I decided to turn around and head for Barnegat and take the seas on the quarter. BI was at that point about 8 miles closer anyway.

Ran over Barnegat Ridge North and didn't mark a thing. Took us about 2.5 hours to break BI from the Fingers in the slop. We were surprised to see that many boats out at the Tires despite the conditions at the time we ran past. I would assume you needed 10-12 ounces yesterday afternoon.

Run up the bay was pretty uneventfully, we were pegged on E from Seaside but made it the last 10 miles home just fine. Highlight of the trip through the bay was seeing Barbed Wire doing about 140 mph and then seeing Jet Set making a couple of passes up and down the bay as well.

After taking on a load of fuel we found out we were not on fumes or as close to empty as we thought...only took 70 gallons to fill up and I hold 90. At the end of the day we did 123 miles for just about 1.75 mpg. We ran out at 22-25 knots fighting strong current, ran back in fighting wind, seas and current with three aboard, full of fuel, ice and cooler of tasty beverages and food.

Despite the lack of pelagics we all had a great day on the water, the boat ran great, made it back in fine and we now know we can take her pretty darn far in some slop and make it home with plenty of fuel to spare in a nice dry cabin!

Pt. Pleasant Elk's Fluke Tournament

I fished aboard the U Lucky Dog for the tournament with Tommy, Ryan and Mike. We broke the inlet to gorgeous weather, flat calm seas and little wind. Not your ideal fluking conditions but we were determined to make the most of it and were glad the forecast was off a bit.

After a little debate to head North or South the captain pointed the boat North and hit the throttles. It was a quick ride up to the Sandy Hook Reef. Shortly after getting lines in most of the crew was complaining about the sticky bottom and wanted to move over sandy bottom. I tried explaining you had better chances of quality fish in and around structure but they were tired of getting hung up on the bottom after only our first drift. Oddly not that many rigs were lost though, most of the time they were able to get themselves free.

We fished two wrecks on the reef before moving to the edges of the mussel beds. We had constant action with shorts and just legal fluke as well as hordes of short and barely legal sea bass. We did manage a few keeper sea bass and I had one that was almost 18".

After moving around that general area we had a few in the box but nothing to write home about...maybe a three pounder. We tried off of Red Church and the Elberon Rocks and then started heading back South. As we started making our way South the conditions deteriorated quickly and came more in line with the original forecast. At that point we decided to head for the barn. As we neared the inlet we decided to make one last drift on the Axel Carlson.

I had a few good hits right away but failed to hook up. Even dropping back to compensate for the fast drift did not help. I switched out to a two hook-slider rig to try and hook up on the short strikes...still could not catch a break. I will definitely be headed out to that last spot with more favorable conditions next week though.

All in all it was a fun day but not very productive. Everyone caught fish, not everyone caught keepers but we did have some fillets for all and we had a great time.

Bertha Blowout?

Looks like this weekend is a bust for offshore and near shore waters. I guess the remnants of Bertha are making their way inland. We were supposed to fish the Elk's Fluke Tournament but I can't see racing around and getting beat up over fluke. That and if I had to guess fishing will probably be off from the ground swell earlier in the week and the rough conditions tonight. Great conditions for tuna and bass but not finicky ground fish. I will probably just fish the river real early for a couple hours before the boat traffic picks up then go back and work on the boat and the dock.

Bertram Rendezvous 2008

Ah, The Gathering of Eagles. This year was my first year at the Rendezvous. I was invited by Mark to attend with him on the Tigress, a 37 Bertram. We left at about 9 AM on Friday from Pt. Pleasant and had slightly sloppy run south to Absecon Inlet into the wind and sea. We didn't make bad time though arriving shortly after noon.

We got the boat and ourselves cleaned up and immediately the drinks from our boat and others started flowing. The Rum Runner was churning out frozen drinks by the dozen for the welcome dock party along with hot and cold hordevours.

We tried to have lunch but the patio bar was very unaccommodating. My being vegetarian sometimes makes for finding a good meal a little difficult. They had hamburgers and cheese burgers along with chicken sandwiches with and without cheese but could not make a grilled cheese. I even tried for a mushroom Swiss burger, hold the burger patty but the waitress could not figure out how to enter that in the computer. I reciprocated with not being able to figure out more than one percent for the tip.

At this point I am thinking, oh great if this is how the rest of the weekend is going to turn out...I am taking car service home now!

Luckily that turned out to be the only real issue of the weekend. We headed back to the boat for more of the usual festivities...more drinks and finger food.

After dinner we headed over to Trump's for a little gambling. It is not one of my favorite casinos and we didn't spend much time there since no one seemed to be winning. Back to the docks for more drinks it was. Do you see a trend happening here???

We had discussed fishing on Saturday the week before but had figured none of us would be up and were uncertain of the weather. As luck would have it Mark, myself, Mike, and Wayne were all up before 6:30 AM and ready for action. We contemplated on heading out over coffee, then breakfast, then beer. At that point we figured it was a little late and settled in for more drinking and finger food. We did hear later there was a pretty good blue fin tuna bite on the AC Ridge-figures. There is always next year.

Pretty much the rest of the weekend was drinking eating, a little gambling here and there and oh did I mention drinking?

We took a look at the new 41 but I was not impressed at all. The salon seemed cramped with the raised floor are for the dinette. This did create a pretty decent size second stateroom though. The cockpit was also a little strange...the gunwales were very wide, about 18" wide. Plus with the higher freeboard of the cockpit you would probably need another 2' on your gaffs in order to be able to reach the fish. For the roughly $900k price tag I was not impressed. Even less impressing was the cruise speed. I did not go for a ride but was told that at 75% it is only about a 20 knot cruise and 26 wide open.

Saturday night's dinner was a pig roast on the rooftop of the patio bar. There was also lobster for an additional fee. I think there were two pigs but not sure as I did not investigate too well. I had a salad, some corn, a $10 Coors Light and headed back to the boat to eat and consume alcohol that was already paid for.

Sunday morning was just spend getting the boat ready for the ride home, breakfast and refueling.

The run home was smooth and downhill despite the 3-5 foot seas. We left around 10:30 AM and arrived home about 1 PM. There was however pea soup fog where visibility at times was maybe 50-75'. About 5 miles offshore visibility increased to about a quarter mile for most of the run North. A few guys ducked into Barnegat, not really sure why. They all complained that you could not see the jetties till between them and that there were dozens of boats all over the place. The fog did clear for them once inside the bay though. We decided to keep running north and go in through Manasquan and deal with the canal again. Once we hit the bathing beach on Island Beach State Park the fog pretty much lifted and all we had left was haze.

Other than the fog the trip down and back was uneventful for us, we did hear on the radio one boat seemed to have blown a head gasket and another boat had and engine shutdown while running but never hear what the outcome of that was. All-in-all it was a great weekend with pretty good weather and good friends. Can't wait for next year.

I should have walked around with the camera more as there would have been some very interesting shots but this is what I ended up with...Bertram Rendezvous 2008 Gallery.