My first time fishing out of New Jersey came this year, 29 years it took me to realize that such a valuable fishery was so close to home. So taking up the offer of a co-worker (Capt Dave) to join him on his boat for a NJ fishing trip was in order. Within an hour we at the waters edge from leaving the house. After a short cruise to the inlet we hit the ocean with hooks ready. It was quite a rough day and there was a mass of boats hugging the coastline to the south. We setup on the outskirts of the fleet and dropped in some live bunker. A helpful fisherman leaving the dock provided us some fresh bait when we were launching the boat (much appreciated).
After about 40 minutes of drifting along the fleet, one of the reels went screaming. I popped up quickly and grabbed the rod. This was such a similar feeling to a tuna pulling off line from the initial hookup. I wasn't expecting such a strong fight this early in the morning. I can say it kicked my butt. Within about 10 minutes the fish was in the boat that measured 38". Awesome, I have never caught a striper, no less a huge one. But the action was short lived, as we floated along for another 1 hour without a bite.
We decided to move up north and do some flounder fishing (Fluke for NJ folk). Our spot of choice was Red Church fishing area. Using Capt Dave's high tech sonar from HumminBird we drifted the hills and lumps identifying good spots. It wasn't long before we had 5 or 6 keepers in the boat. Capt Dave takes real pride in his flounder fishing techniques and tackle. After my early retirement from offshore fishing career (...summer job) I focused on my own approach to mastering flounder fishing. We made floundering look easy that day and reeled up the lines around 5 o'clock to head back to the dock.
After a long day on the water, we could see the inlet within view. Then we noticed a small group of boats before that. Dave slowed the boat down, and we both realized what the boats were doing. A large school of bunker was being hammered by stripers. Dave's son and I grabbed the spinning reels with large treble hooks to snag some of the bunker. It was only minutes when we floated the live bunker back into the school. Whammy! Two fish hooked up right off the bat. This was the most excitement I had in long time. I remember the days during chartering when we would get multiple hookups at one time. This was the same case, in turn, the boat was filled with chaos and adrenaline.
We found that once you had your live bait ready to pull right up to the school and feed the line out quickly. An hour later we had fish in the cooler (overflowing) and two fish laying on the deck. Now began a trip back to house to fillet up half dozen huge stripers and flounder. When midnight rolled around we finishing up our fish cleaning with giant smiles on our faces.
Until next time, tight lines and screaming reels.
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