Back-to-Back Sea Bass

I had a weekend pass from The Admiral since she was away at a conference promoting our new products GP Reports. We had great weather all weekend, although I could have done without the humidity on Sunday.

Saturday I headed right for a wreck on the Axel Carlson. I made a couple passes drifting over it before anchoring to test the waters. On each of the two drifts I caught a couple shorts and put a keeper sea bass in the box on each pass. After anchoring up and getting in position over the portion that I wanted it was non-stop action with short and keeper sea bass and a few short tog with one keeper about three pounds. The bergals were not too bad, had about a dozen of them as well as two would-be keeper fluke at 22 and 23 inches that were released for next season. I also gave a couple of rock piles a shot, they each produced keepers and shorts as well. Upon returning to the Inlet I was greeted with acres of bunker with nothing working them, they were just flipping and being playful.

Sunday I got a late start leaving the dock about 7 AM and decided to head back to the same wreck since it was producing so well. It did not produce as I had hopped. I guess the swifter currents of the full moon on a day and stronger winds had put the fish off a bit. I moved around to the rock piles and began picking at fish with keepers, shorts and tons of bergals mixed in. I decided to call it a day early as the winds picked up a bit. Approaching the bell buoy there were fish busting everywhere. I grabbed the first rod rigged with an artificial which happened to be a bunker colored rattle trap. I immediately hooked up with something small...it turned out to be a snagged bunker. I knew there was something under them this time as they were spraying out of the water and not just being playful. Second cast I hooked into something much bigger...it turned out to be a four pound bonito. They were everywhere and I had one on with every cast until the fleet showed up speeding right through the breaking fish putting them down in a matter of minutes.

I can't wait for cooler temps to weed out the fisherman that lack both proper boat handling skills and proper etiquette when fishing bunker pods or schools of breaking fish. It is very frustrating and you can't explain to them that they will catch more fish if they adjust their methods as their way is the only way and no one else knows what they are doing. All-in-all it was a great weekend on the water with fish in the box two days in a row and sore arms.

Hanna???

After much hype she was not much more than our average Nor'easter. But everyone pretty much prepared for the worst and fastened storm lines to pilings not already occupied by their everyday lines. I had thought about fishing but with the early morning fog I decided to stay in and work on the boat. Later on I found out there was a mad dog fluke bite right at the mouth of the inlet, pretty much anyone who went had limit catches in no time.

I did accomplish something I have been putting off for some time though. I replaced my main rear bilge pump with a much larger model and then replaced the froward bilge pump with old main pump. Also a big upgrade in pump size...from 360gph to 1500gph. I am not sure what they were thinking with only installing a 360 pump, it would not do much in an emergency that is for sure.

After making sure everything was in order if the storm did come through I headed down to Sun Harbor Bay Club to pickup some tackle I had ordered and also pickup a birthday present. Joey was having a ball with the wind and rain, but most others did not want to be bothered. Joe was hunkered down in the bait shop that seemed to be taking on a little water under the door from the wind driven rain. Not long after my arrival did the chop in the bay start breaking onto the fuel dock. Conditions were very different from Beaverdam Creek with their facing East and being closer to the inlet with no land mass or buildings to break the wind or sea coming in from the storm.

The ride home was pretty uneventful until I reached the Driscal Bridge where it seemed the heavens opened up and everyone forgot how to drive in rain. The rain and wind was no match for the RainX wiper blades and Venco Marine rain and water repellent though once I was able to break free from the traffic.

BFT Baby!

We left the dock at 4:15 AM...I was told the night before 4:30 and was woken up at 3:55 to the sound of the diesels being fired up three slips down and Mark yelling COME ON JOE! Jumped up got dressed and hopped aboard just as the dock lines were being cast off.

Broke the inlet shortly after in very dark calm conditions due to the full moon. Not sure what the draggers were doing but it looked like one was coming into the inlet on the North side of the North jetty but it turned out they were dragging the beach for something.

The ride out was nice but then our port motor temp gauge was reading a little hot...hotter than normal. We quickly took readings on both motors with the thermal gun and everything was fine. Then we lost all gauges for the port motor. We then shutdown the port motor and cleaned the sea strainer which did not seem that bad but did it just to be sure. Fired her back up and the thermal gun was reading just about them same temps and then about 10 minutes later the gauges came back and everything was reading normal...by this time we had first light...which we were hopping to be out there for was creeping up and Mark put her up on pane finally and headed right to our numbers. If it wasn't for the thermal gun we probably would have limped back home on one engine and bagged the whole trip. You can never be too prepared.

Since we were behind a little we dropped the lines in about a mile or two short of our destination since we started marking bait, fish and had some whales in the area. It was pretty uneventful all morning. There were whales a porpoise around all morning, an occasional free jumping mahi and we marked a lot of fish in the 100 to 125' depths all morning that would not come up.

We stopped twice and jigged on some bigger concentrations of fish but no takers. We were also able to make a couple of wrecks not on any of our charts...we will be investigating them further on other trips.

We then zig zagged through a maze of what seemed to be endless pot strings along the ledge. Rum Runner picked up a small mahi in the maze.

There was one knockdown that we never saw the fish...it bit right through the wire on the pre-rigged bally. Water was probably a little cold for a wahoo so we suspected a small mako.

After that in the next hour I release two bags, that once filled with water put up a fight similar to a large cow-nosed ray. They were released unharmed to the garbage can to die a slow painful death.

We were getting ready to call it a day and decides to troll another half hour. Wayne and Tommy were sleeping, Mark was driving and me and Ryan were on the bridge talking...and then she hit. By the time Tommy got to the rod she dumped about a third of a 50SW. I came down from the bridge in two steps and landed on the cooler. Tommy fought the fish for about 10 minutes and had it just about to the leader, it looked at the boat and headed right for the bottom...well about 20 feet short as we watched it sound on the fish finder. Tommy got her back up a second time and same thing...right to the bottom. Third time she came up I stuck her right in the gills and she was in the boat.

While we were hooked up Rum Runner came fast trolled over, circled us and immediately hooked up a fish and boated it just after us. We worked the area for another hour, Rum Runner again hooked up and we did the same fast trolling over and circled but we could not find our under fish as they did. We trolled another 15 minutes and picked up the lines and headed in.

It was a joy not rigging baits at 4:30 that morning, especially with having to deal with the gauge and motor temp issue. The pre-rigged ballys from Sun Harbor held up better and didn't wash out like a lot of pre-rigged baits we have had in the past from other tackle shops.

Water was very clear but gray in most spots and also a grayish/blue in others. We stayed in the colder water...67-69.5 degrees. This is where we had the best readings of bait and fish deep. It was just a mater of getting the speed right to get them to come up. We trolled between 6 and 9 ballys naked and skirted in various colors and a WWWB varied from bird/bally, bird, daisy chain and spreader bar. The fish hit the port flat line bally.

It was an eleven day on the water with great conditions, beautiful sunny skies, good friends and a fish in the box. She weighed in at 59.7 dressed. One of the best parts was the 37 minute ride to break the inlet...catching BFT close to home...priceless!

Fluke & Sea Bass

Left the dock at 5:30...got to the inlet and thought we were making a big mistake when the Henriques and Viking in front of us went down into the trough and all we saw was their hard tops and antennas of their fly bridges! Hit the bottom of the first trough and took water of next wave over the pilothouse...still not through the inlet it was too late turn around so we proceeded out to the bell buoy to see what it was like. Once out away from the inlet it was not too bad...4-5' rollers with little or no chop on them. I guess we just happened to leave at the wrong time of the ebbing tide as guys who left later said the inlet was not that bad.

Once we picked up everything off the floor we proceeded to the Axel Carlson. Hit several wrecks until we found the ones with fish willing to feed. Marked bait and fish on almost everyone we stopped at.

We had a constant pick of fluke (both shorts and keepers) as well as many keeper sea bass. Actually most sea bass were keepers.

The lack of drift I don't think was the problem with fluking...the ground swell and wicked bottom current in the morning had the fish off. The little bit of wind there was there was opposite the current but once they were going th same direction the fluking bite picked up.

Once the South wind really kicked in we headed into the Mantoloking pipe to give that a shot before heading in. More of the same...plent of sea bass on it and some fluke as well.

All fish were on spearing. I tried various gulp baits throughout the day and did not get a touch on any of them. Tried deadsticked and jigged...spearing did not matter jigged or deadsticked the fish just hammered it everytime.

All in all it was a great day on the water ending the day with seven keeper fluke to 23" and a dozen sea bass to 3 lbs! The highlight of the day was my personal best sea bass at 21.5" and 3 lbs.

Are they migrating early as in 2005?

Curious as to your thoughts on what the weekend's forecasted heave will do to the fluke fishery. I have a feeling it will be the beginning of the end. In years past when the close was Columbus Day that was a much bigger deal. If my memory and my quick glance at my logs was correct the last time they fled the inshore waters in a hurry before a storm was in September of 2005. What do you think...will the heave starting on Saturday trigger them to migrate back to the shelf? It seems that they are already showing in numbers in the haunts that we typically fish in mid to late September.