After a week of sporadic thunderstorms and strong winds, the captains of the Beach Haven Charter Fishing Association are looking forward to what appears to be a week of good weather for fishing.
Headlining the inshore fishing is a solid bite on fluke, or summer flounder as they are also known. With the bay waters steadily warming, the fluke seem to be making their annual migration back into the ocean. The fluke action will be spread out from the bays into the inlets, and ultimately on the inshore artificial reefs. A one fish per day daily bag limit of one black sea bass reopened that season on July 1 providing additional opportunities to take home a fish dinner.
Speaking of those reefs, Captain John Lewis of the BHCFA has announced that a barge is expected to be sunk on the Little Egg Reef as part of the reef replenishment organized by the Junior Mates Program of the BHCFA. These efforts have added a great deal of new structure on the area reefs and are providing enhanced inshore ocean fishing.
Captain John also noted that he has his new boat, the “Insatiable” ready and available for fishing. He has been busy the past few months making deliveries for other boat owners and can now get back to catching some fish.
After taking a 2-week break, Captain Brett Taylor of “Reel Reaction Sportfishing, had two recent trips. He had a family out on a 4-hour bay trip. They managed to get close to 50 fluke with two nice fish for dinner. On a second trip he had an ocean fluke charter. They had problems getting through all the black sea bass but did manage to boat 2 keeper fluke, their limit of sea bass, and a few ling.
The offshore tuna reports have been positive lately, and Captain Dave Wittenborn was confident on a recent tuna trip on the “Benita J” Captain Dave reports it was a tough day, but his angler stuck with it and boated a pair of nice yellowfin tuna. He added the whale watching was spectacular.