It’s the Fourth of July weekend, and things are hopping for the various crews of the Beach Haven Charter Fishing Association. The fluke action is strong right now in the bay and inshore ocean waters. In addition to the fishing action, the BHCFA and its Junior Mates Program recently made another deployment of fishing structure, this time a tugboat on the Barnegat Light Reef.
The Junior Mates held its first training session last week, attended by 25 youngsters eager to learn all they can about fishing. As a matter of fact, five first year junior mates accompanied Captain John Lewis on the “Insatiable” to watch the sinking of the tugboat designed to create new fish habitat.
Former junior mate Max Goldman, who now has his Captain credentials, has been seeing time working on the “Starfish,” the “Miss Beach Haven,” and as captain on a tiki boat. Captain Max reports the boats have a mix of fluke and black sea bass, with rods bending with a combination of both short and keeper-sized fish. The headboat “Miss Beach Haven” is offering various trips including a popular sunset fluke inlet trip.
Captain Gary Dugan has been seeing the same level of action on the “Irish Jig” with large amounts of fish coming over the rails. Keeper fish are tough at times to find, but there is plenty of action and fish dinners in the box every trip.
Captain Brett Taylor reports good action on his trips in the Barnegat Light area with “Real Reaction Sport Fishing.” He frequently runs two trips a day and is experiencing many limit trips. His anglers have been catching fluke to 23.5-inches.
Captain Connor Smilon of “FishHawk Charters” has been finding a nice rate of keeper fluke and on one of his trips managed to pick up a surprise weakfish while aiming for fluke.