WORST day of the 2015 fishing season

Is the day I bring the boats home for their winters nap.
Would have liked to stay in until the end of December but the sea gulls have taken over the marina, and everything is covered in shit five minutes after you walk away from the docks.
Cant remember ever seeing so many on the docks. possibly hundreds on each dock. The normal deterants havent kept them away 

State needs to sell permits for them , and knock down the numbers like they have done to the deer  .

A good cleaning , then wrapped this week they will be ready for the snow.

Thanksgiving day shore banquet

Headed out Today with Tracey to get in some fishing on a Beautiful Thanksgiving day.
Blackfish bite was slow for us most of the day . some drops having little life on them.
Had four blackfish to 6 pounds. and way too many shorts 
saw a bass blitz going on , threw shads and hooked a nice fat bass ( released to fight another day)
and had one big bluefish hit a blackfish jig.

nice day on fairly flat seas. , got to watch the sunset getting back in at dark.

Blustery Bass Beatdown 11/15

Got to run out today with Tracey , Eddie, And Austin to have a go at the striped bass that have been finally abundant for this fall run.
Plan was to bass for awhile then tog, but That changed as the bassing was just too good to not take advantage of.

Got to fish a bunch of new stuff coming out from Pure Fishing for the new year .
I fished a new Revo beast on a volatile rod, Tracey was fishing a new clash reel on a new carnage rod.
Eddie and Austin were fishing Revo NACL on Battalion rods.
And everything we used made short work of lots of bass to Tracey's 36 pounder.
Throwing  heavy shads out produced snag baits by a  good margin today 

First stop was just south of our inlet where we had a bunch of small fish. A text from The Captain of Monger Nation had me move further south as he was doing well in big bunker schools.

We bounced around looking for working fish amongst a giant sea of boats, and picked here and there.
Seeing some working birds further off, we made the move and had awesome bassing with alot less pressure . 

Fished till a little after noon and headed in . Keeping 4 fish and releasing the rest to fight another day.

was an unreal amount of adult bunker as well as many schools of  peanuts pushing down the beach.
Finally getting to put some stripers on the new ride felt great .
The New Engel 240 cooler is def just the right size.

finished at the fillet table where the new line up of Penn fillet knives made quick work of turning those bass into nice table fare




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ENGEL coolers WOW

After looking and reading tons of reviews I decided on using Engel coolers on the boat.
While I would never get to see the ice last ten days on the boat recently on my Illinois hunting trip I did.
And all I can saw is WOW they really work.
Filled a 123 qt about 75% With ice before leaving Nj.
After daily use through 70 degree weather I still had over a third of that ice still in the cooler 11 days later.
I put my deer in the cooler frozen with no ice at all the night before leaving.
24 hours later when i opened the cooler at home it was like opening a freezer as the cold air escaped in a cloud.
The packaged meat was still rock hard frozen without any change in aperance.

They def proved to be a SUPER cooler.

PENN no slip tools

Penn Has a great new line up of non slip tools and knives.
Check them out, cant wait to start using them on the boat

Tough weather fishing 10/24

Headed out with Eddie to do some bottom fishing today.
Met a much angrier ocean than forcasted as expected with the east winds.
Chased a few areas of working birds that had spike weakfish under them.
Plan was to do some catch and release togging , and then sea bass.

sea bass were crushing the crabs at the first drop, so we switched to them for awhile.
Lots of shorts and just keepers, but we threw those back just keeping fish over 14" .
I had one nice trigger fish there.
Wanted to make a move , and ended up losing the wreck anchor as we got hammered by two 8' plus waves while pulling it. was crazy how far those waves pushed the heavy contender.
Mother nature is one tough lady.

moved south and drifted for sea bass , once again it was drop and reel, but mostly smaller fish. we picked away at some nicer ones who made their way into the box.
Finished the day early with a decent cooler of fish, as we had enough of getting our butts kicked out there .

check out the spine on the one blackfish we kept. I didnt know tog could have scoliosis .

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Slow Windy Togging 10/18

Headed out with Tracey and Eddie to do some togging.
Winds were cranking making it tough not to swing  off the smaller pieces.
so I jumped around to a few bigger spots, not finding much.
5 drops produced 10 keepers ( all released).
as we were looking for a few nicer sized dinner fish with the limit still at one per.
Biggest fish was about 17" so they all got to swim another day.

More finishing touches

Added a few more rod holders today
As well as outfitting the boat with Engel Coolers to keep both the catch and lunches COLD .

Boat is finally ready The way I want to fish it.
come on Stripers and Tog

TOG LIMITS 10/11

BUT thats not saying much since the limit is 1 per person still.

Headed out with Tracey to do some catch and release togging.
thought the seas had settled down alot after the blow this week , and they would be chewing their heads off.
NOT as the bite was very scratchy , and we only boated a few keepers as well as a handfull of shorts.

Still was nice getting out on the boat , and doing some running around

SLOW FLUKE FISHING 9/17

Headed out with Tracey and Steve to try and do some fluke fishing today.
Got to try out the new electronics today. was nice to have the extra screen , as on leaving this morning it was densely fogged in.
was able to set the radar and chart plotter, as well as the fish finder screens on and make our way easily and safely out to the grounds.
Had very good intel of some BIG fish being found relatively close to home.
Worked that area for a few hours and had a bunch of shorts , as there def were fish there but couldnt find bigger ones wanting to chew.
Worked a few miles north where we still had way more small fish. but put a few keepers in the box to Traceys 4+ pounder.
I had one fish that was a definite surprise when A big cownose slammed my gulp and pulled off over 100 yards of line before I was able to turn him and bring him boatside.
The Revo Nacl drags worked flawlessly on those long hard runs, another testament to their reliability for most fish encountered inshore

Getting there

Finally was able to get the electronics installed in the boat.
Installer coudnt figure out a glitch between the units, a quick call to Furuno Tech support had it up and running in minutes.
The Furuno tech support is second to none.Great to deal with a company who sets the bar high in making sure the users of their units get the best set up possible.


Just a few more other things to add and the boat with be much better equipped for the fall fishery

BIG DOG TOURNEY 8/29

Headed out with Scott , Eddie , and Anthony to fish the last tourney of the  2015 season.
fishing was slow with way more shorts than normal for the sticky stuff we were fishing.
Managed 10 keepers, to Anthony's just over 5#.
Scott had the high hand with his limit.
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Getting the boat ready to do some off  shore stuff in the next few weeks

Family Fluke Fun 8/16

Got to enjoy a few hours of relaxed fluking today , With Tracey, My sister Jodi and nephew Jacob from PA this morning.
Made a quick run down the beach to where I had a friend tell me was a decent pod of fish the last few days.

Got to fish in the sand snag free , had alot of action, mostly shorts about 7/1 but also 5 keepers to Jodi's biggest at 6.1 on the digital back on the dock.

Back in the slip before noon.
Then off to a great lunch at the Shrimp Box.

Was great to see them enjoy what we take for granted here in NJ.
And enough fillets for them to take back to PA with them to enjoy fresh 

FSOS FLUKE TOURNEY 2015

Broke in the new REELMUSIC today , fishing the first tourney on it. The FSOS 
Fished with Tracey, Scott, Eddie , and Anthony.
Had to work finding fish that wanted to chew, but the Quality of fish today was very good.
We caught over a boat limit, ( only keeping 22)
throwing back anything under 20" lots of fish between 4-6 pounds.
The biggest 2 going 7.4 and 6.4, finishing just out of the money.
The 7.4 was 29 1/4" long , it just had a very thin white side.
took 8 pounds to get into the dough.

Congrats to the winners, and those who placed.
Congrats to Buck and team for taking 2nd

Easy fluke limits 8/14

Looked around at a few spots for tomorrows tourney.
Found more shorts than we have been seeing , but plenty of decent fish mixed in . nothing huge, but fish to 4 pounds.

Tracey and I had our limit a little after noon.


hope to find a mat tomorrow

FLUKEMASTERS wanna puke fluke

Headed out on Scotts boat with Him , Eddie And Anthony this morning for the Flukemasters tourney.
fished hard for our 4 man limit of fish to Eddie's 6 pounder. weighing in 22 pounds even.

def had some times I just wanted to puke today, NOT from the sea's but due to the fact Scott and I each dropped 2 very good fluke today.
Would have only took two pounds to get us into the money and any of those four fish would def have put us at the pay window.

congrats to all who placed 

Quick fluke trip 7/29

Got to fish a few hours yesterday with Tracey and Steve.
Tried some local spots, found fish at each spot but was mostly shorts.
ended up with 6 keepers to just over 4 pounds

Grand Pa Savino fluke tourney

Fished the Grand Pa Savino tourney today , with Scott, Anthony and Eddie.
Scott did a good job of putting us on fish , catching over a boat limit, ( only keeping 18).Anthony had all the big fish honors today for our weigh in fish.
we were third when we weighed but we got bumped by the next two boats to weigh.
we weighed in just under 20 pounds, the big fish going 7.8.

was cool seeing the Doormat calcutta fish of 13 pounds win the 50,000 prize.


was a steady day of catching fish when ever we could get a drift.
I dropped another big fish today thats going to haunt me.


Fun long day on the water.

Congrats to all the winners today, in what I think is one of the best fluke tourneys yearly.

quick trip 7/23

Headed out for the afternoon after putting the Contender back in.
found fish pretty quick and had 7 keepers in four drifts.
All fish released as I wasnt going to have time to clean fish before work.

7/18 RBAC FLUE TOURNEY

Headed out with Scott and Anthony to fish the RBAC fluke tourney.
headed out to the sticky stuff looking for a big fish.
nasty swell, hard rain  tough winds made for a fast drift, but we found fish that wanted to chew.
Had fourteen keepers, ( only keeping 10) throwing back 18" fish, and lots of shorts
Two Nice big sea bass.

We contributed ALOT of bucktails today, while fishing hard throughout all the sloppy weather

Rainy day Flukin 7/14

Headed out with Steve to try and get some numbers plugged into the contender.
Nasty swell, and constant storms coming through made for a fast drift in dirty water.
fished a few hours and were able to put 5 keepers in the boat to 5 1/2 pounds.

7/12 Day 2 SHBA fluke tourney

Tracey and I fished with Scott, Eddie , And Anthony for day 2 of the SHBA fluke tourney.
was another great day of catching, just no big fish to get in the money.
Biggest fish was 6#2 oz.
Tracey was edged out by a 5 pounder in the ladies division.
Anthony had a hot hand in the AM limiting out by 645.
alot of quality, many in the 4-5 pound range as well as releasing a bunch over 5 pounds after we had the box filled. looking for than lone doormat.

had over 35 keepers today only retaining our legal limit

7/11 Day 1 SHBA fluke tourney

Quick report,
headed out with Scott, Eddie , Anthony and Tracey on Scotts boat for day 1 of the SHBA tourney.
fished the sticky stuff all day, BUCKTAIL to keeper ratio was about 1-1
Finished up with a 5 person boat limit to Scott's 6 1/2#
Tracey best today was 4#

First MFM

 First Massachusetts fluke massacre

 After Anthony received  a sick report a few weeks back about the fluke bite off Nantucket, we had to see it for our selves. Anthony had a customer come in, completely worn out, that had just got back from 2day Helen H trip. 
Tales of fluke to #15 were enough to drive us near insanity.  
Scott booked captain Jimmy the Greek of "On Time Charters" and Scott, Eddie, Anthony  and I made the long trek up to the cape. 

The drive up had everyone wired, excited to say the least. Even  McDonald's serves lobster up there fyi
we made it to the south Yarmouth boat ramp with a few hours to crash before shoving off. 
We made a stop just off Nantucket to get some bluefish for bait and also managed a nice striper as well. The fish were stacked and there was not a boat in sight, in fact, we didn't see another fishing boat the whole entire day besides the Helen H. That completely blew our minds , talk about an UNTOUCHED fishery. 

The fluke were spread out but when we found them we were bailing beautiful 3-5lb fish. 
Although we didn't connect with our monster, the day was still a complete success.
we caught over 50 keepers only keeping our boat limit. 
We were priveledge to see an unspoiled fluke fishery. 
We fished all day in troughs with the same Bucktail. .

Jimmy worked hard all day, and im not sure how he felt about some  of the HARDCORE ball busting going on.

But while he fished fresh bait thoughout the day, we mostly bucktailed . And really did a number on the fluke. when Jimmy would find a pod of fish we did quick work filling the box.

Not sure how Scott made it drving the whole way there and back, especialy the way back that took over 2X getting home due to road closures and traffic.

Was a good time fishing with our tourney team up there prepping for the new season. 


Best part is I got to fish for free, as Tracey paid my fare , as a birthday present.