I am back in Virginia beach from my trip to Edison NJ.
We left out of Sandy Hook marina at 0700 on Friday on the "Fisherman" which is a party boat.
We first tried clams and had limited success on the boat maybe stripers in a half hour. My buddy and I had nothing.
Then we went to jigging spoons, and still no major hook ups. Then we moved again, but this time at a higher speed. I looked off in the distance and there it was, birds everywhere.
We joined in with the other 4 party boats that were there and had constant hook ups for the next 4 hours. We would only have to move with the birds.
My buddy and I caught mostly Blues like around 50 or so, the stripers were not all that big, the biggest the boat brought onboard was 36 inches. We only caught 4 stripers and only 2 keepers. I kept on adjust my technique jigging, but still caught mostly blues.
It was a new experiance fishing in NJ, seeing New york from the boat was a treat.
It was also my first experiance striper fishing from a party boat, it was a well run boat. They run alot more party boats up there, and run alot of them offshore, which i found interesting.
It was a great day on the water, cant wait to see the birds getting excited down here at the CBBT.
Great job, Eric!! I remember getting into a bluefish blitz as a kid up there...talk about action and fun!! I'm ready for those stripers to show up here...won't be long.
Go up there sometime in late February/early March and get on a party boat that's going out fishing for cod. You'll love it. They leave (I used to fish out of Point Pleasant on the Jamaica II - a Bogan boat) about 2 am and return at about 8 pm. It's a long ride out, but everyone sleeps where they can and they do it on the way in too - benches deck floor of the cabin - just anyplace.
Cod is fun to catch and to eat. The handrails on the boat are heated so it makes it easier to fish cold weather.
[Q] anotherfishtale originally wrote:
GETREEL WHEN DOES THE STRIPERS GET THERE ? WHAT DO YOU FISH FOR NOW ?
[/Q]
We've got some resident stripers around now, but we're waiting for those big ocean fish up your way now. This is a great fishery down here...we've got inshore action on spot, speckled trout, stripers, puppy drum, tautog(blackfish), have a few big drum that might be around. Plus offshore with approaching bluefin and false albies and big bluefish and then south of us in North Carolina, yellowfin tuna and wahoo.
Around here there is something in striking distance year round. I would say the end of Feb and beginning of March would be our slowest, plus weather can be tuff then too.
Nice report on sandy hook. I live in south Jersey at hte beach, and the stripers are not here en mass yet. It was a warm fall and water temps just last week dropped below 60 degrees. So hang in there another month or so.
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