NJ Fishing Report -2020

SkunkBoat

SkunkBoat

God
Had a slow spring. Got new motors on the grady 265 but the weather sucked thru May. BFT had been hot at Little Italy and the Resor but its moved out to Triple Wrecks.
Fish Monger has been catching big fluke at Axel Carlson reef this week.

Been catching BFT. This time at Texas Tower #4 under whales and dolphins.
Kept our 2 school bft and released a bunch more.

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TT#4 whales video https://youtu.be/GMMy0rEi9mw

Then we fed dock stripers fresh sushi
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Got out 100 miles to Toms Canyon overnight. Forecast hottest days of the year, calm seas, light winds.
Left at 3 pm and hit fog at 40 miles...never ending fog...wet, damp, cold fog. With the radar and AIS we were able to get to the canyon by 7:30pm. Trolled until dark. Set up swordfish baits. At 10 pm with got bit on the squid 150ft down in 880ft on a Penn 80 on a 7 ft broomstick of a rod. That rod has caught swords to 250 pounds in Florida. We proceded to nearly get spooled. Chased it in reverse for 2 miles east to the deep(in the dark fog) Never once had any control over it. never gained back 100 ft without then losing 200ft. At 11 pm with about 100 ft left on the spool, it went straight down like it was a submarine. The rod bent in half. Crazy big fish. Last ditch effort my brother tightened the drag. I said "that always fails"....it did. It takes a long time to reel in all of the line on a Penn 80. We got back the noodle float. Knot broke at the swivel.
We told ourselves it was for the best because it would have taken 4 hours to gain back that line and we would have lost it at the boat with our tiny gaffs anyways. Probably a 500# plus swordfish. I don't think we could boat a fish like that.

As a consolation prize, we did get a 45 pound yellowfin in the morning.
Foggy ride all the way in to 12 miles where it opened up into a sunny day with wind honking out of the south.
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Sounds like you guy's got your HINEY'S kicked, but it was a good kicking?? At least you came home with some tuna steaks. :beer: Well done, oh no, not the steaks you guy's. :clap:
 
yft

We overnighted at the Hudson Canyon where we lost a yft at the boat and boated another. On the way in we hit the the hot yellowfin bite near the Haskell wreck. Boated two nice yellowfins there. Chunking butterfish with 40# leader and a tiny circle hook was the ticket.
Nice day turned ugly halfway back to port. I feel sorry for the center consoles....

https://youtu.be/5hqR8WSQIZM

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Looks like you picked a perfect day, water was beautiful and so was the fishing, nicely done and a good video. :clap::clap::clap:
 
Some news for all you flukers out there. The guy who docks next to me was fluking at Shrewsbury Rocks, saw bunker getting busted, threw a popper and landed a 61" bluefin and hour later.
 
10.18.2020 trip

We couldn't wait any longer. "Iffy" forecast but it was flat when we left at 5 am.
Plan was to run 78 miles to the hot yellowfin tuna bite out past Triple wrecks, catch some YFT, go out to Hudson if the weather was good and troll pots for Mahi, then hit some wrecks on the way back for black sea bass.

So we reversed things, stopped after sunrise 40 miles at the Resor wreck on the way out, limited out with 20 nice black seabass in 40 minutes, then continued on to tuna.
It got "sportier as we went. Came into a fleet at 70 miles, just past the Haskell. 5 or 6 Humpback whales working bait. Seas jumped up to 3 to 5 just as we got there. We slowed to trolling speed, dropped just one rod back with a blue/white chugger daisy chain and headed to some whale blows. It got bit in 30 seconds. Boated a nice 50 inch YFT. Trolled around for a while but just kept getting little tunny (aka False Albacore aka Bonita). Went to the downwind side of some whales and drifted baits, throwing some dead peanut bunker. YFT exploded on the peanuts at the surface but our baits were down! My brother cranked his bait up and hooked up. Unprepared as always... I quickly rigged a big spinning rod with a circle hook, flipped out a peanut bunker and was on in an explosion. We boated the double, though mine took 40 minutes on that spinning combo. Never again...PAIN!

We had enough tuna. Seas were too big to go out to the Hudson pots for Mahi so we ran in to the Chicken canyon pots and found some small mahi biting. Also caught & released a small Bluefin tuna.

We managed to catch all of our target species...SUCCESS!!!

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Nice report, looks sporty in the first picture, slicking off in the last one. I like those sea bass, we only get those in the winter and not very big , a 10 - 12 inch one is a good size one down here.

Our weather forecast have been extremely inaccurate this summer. Best TV weather guy we ever had was an ex charter boat captain, he often wasn t in step with the NOAA, but was usually right.
 
phatdaddy said:
Nice report, looks sporty in the first picture, slicking off in the last one.
Click to expand...

Look at the tilt of the head boat behind me. He was rolling in a trough.
It wasn't slicking off, just the angle going away...Photos never capture the sea state well. It was an honest wind blown 3 to 5 swell. About as rough as you would want to fish in a 26 footer (especially at 70 miles). A V20 would be dangerous in it.

I think we got the long runs out of our blood unless we get a 3 day 2ft or less forecast. We really want a swordfish on deck.

Seabass at the 20 mile reef site should be good and Striper fishing along the beach is about to get going strong. Bluefin tuna will be inside of 10 miles but really hard to catch. Its the fall finale and its all in range of V20s...get out there!
 
Fall 2020 striper bite is on!

Fall Bass run is ON!!
We got out for the evening bite on reports from our dock buddies of stripers to 50 pounds.
Bite was off Long Branch, busting under birds. All action was on small jigs on the surface. Dropping caught dogfish.

I was using a Deadly Dick.
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