JAY MANN'S FISHING WEBSITE ::: Daily Blog --
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Monday, July 07, 2008: Waves: 1-2 feet out of the south. Water clarity: Excellent. Water tamps: Low 60s, near-beach; mid-70s bay and outgoing inlet; mid-60s nearshore past beachline.
Run-Down: Fluking is torrid in some spots and simply brisk in others. Fluke keeping is slow to bitterly frustrating.
Email-wise, I had near a dozen reports of hot fluke zones with low bagging counts.
Still, there were two 13-pound fluke taken near the Middle grounds, one came into Polly’s dock. Details on the second one are lacking. Anyone have data?
Seabassing is good when conditions allow ventures out to the reefs or close-in structure. Early birds get the bounty.
Cleaner water came into the shoreline today so bassing (for resident fish) should pick up quickly. While water temps remain cold, jigs and slow plugs might find a taker or two. Clams and (especially) worms are a sure bait choice.
This clearer water should allow for kingfish finds. Think fake-o baits or worm pieces on red float rigs. Don’t be surprised if fluke grab on. The surf has had a load of flatties, virtually none approaching take-home.
Keep an eye open for thunderboomers.
Email: “Is the commercial limit STILL 14"? That seems obscene considering the recreational numbers. I wouldn't count on any of those slightly undersize fish being left near the inlets once they find them. According to an article in the Star Ledger, apparently New York is trying to get changes made to our regs to be more in line with theirs and to share more equally in the take. Bigger fish, lesser quantity. Commercials on one side, NY on the other, and gas prices through the roof. Maybe its time to pack it in, sit on the beach and count windmills. Ron.”
Calendar: To all,
There will be a Reef Rescue meeting on July 7, 7:00 PM, at the Tinton Falls Boro Hall conference room, located at 556 Tinton Av. Tinton Falls, NJ. Boro Hall is conveniently located less than a mile from parkway exit 105.
The agenda will include past and present legislative progress and rumors of a possible regulation that could be forthcoming from DF&W. We've attended meetings with legislators and state government officials. Anything and everything to further our cause.
Please join us to hear about the progress and help map out our strategy for the future. Bring your ideas and friends. Best regards, Pete.”
SKY SCOPING: It’s time to talk hurricanes. Hurricane Bertha is a spooky gal. No, not because she’s any threat to us. It’s more the unslight matter that she was born way over in the Cape Verde zone (off equatorial Africa), a hurricane rookery that really shouldn’t get crankin’ until way later in the summer. The reason to sweat out the so-called Cape Verde season is the Jersey-worrisome fact that 2/3 of all tropical systems originating there eventually turn into the western Atlantic, i.e. toward us.
Hopefully the tropics will come to their senses and back off sprinkling hurricane seeds that far east this early.
When speaking of hurricanes, you have to ponder water temps. This is as cold water a summer as many of us way-backers can recall. In fact, looking at my journals, I’ve recorded a number of July 4th weekends when ocean water temps were in the mid 70s, as opposed to the current mid-50s.
I know all of you have absorbed my years of explaining upwelling as the culprit when unseasonably low water temps put a hurting on our much-anticipated summer activities. This year the south winds – prime mover in ushering in cooler water -- have not backed off for nearly 2 months.
We are seeing a reprieve this week, as nicer 60-degree-plus water has inched in, but the protracted affects of southerlies have the ocean all but geared to quickly revert back to frigid, often overnight.
Could we doomed to cold water all summer? Nope. There is a threshold whereby solar heating of the ocean, along with warmer southern currents immediately offshore, will win out. However, that can take until August. What we need now is a backing off of the southeasterly winds, via a wind switch to the southwest and west or a simply calm down. Anecdotal note: Cooler waters early in the summer often mark a tendency to see milder water very late into the fall. Unfortunately, that’s not always the best thing for fall fishing -- but there are tons of last-minute factors that can take over the sky-scene.
A troubling meteoro-condition not being discussed much is a building drought, especially in the Pinelands, where many paddling creeks are low to impassable.
Last weekend, I was visiting a favorite wild blueberry field located within a one-time bog zone. For the past 10 years, that field has been marked by lush fens (very damp, often water-covered patches) and deep-water creeks. The fens are now crunch-dry and the creeks are down to a chain of stale puddles between dried creek-bottom mud patches. This is double troubling. Not only are we heading into the longest and hottest part of the summer but there sure seems to an insidious dropping of water table and even the deep-down aquifer levels.
THIS THAT AND EVERYTHING: Here’s a party boat tale from Louisiana but fits perfectly in-port hereabouts.
Federal fisheries officials last week levied fines of $125,000 against not only the captain/owner of Captain Charlie's (David T. Harrelson of Lockport, La.) but also the 18 recreational anglers aboard that vessel.
As you all know too well, there has been a nasty issue over head boats, primarily down Cape May way, allowing fares to take undersized tog. Even when such violations were exposed, the fines were not immense and the anglers themselves were seldom on the receiving end of paybacks.
It should be noted that the fishing folks aboard the Captain Charlie’s weren’t saints. Actually only the captain was from Louisiana. The fares included 17 Georgians and one Floridian, none of whom had Louisiana fishing licenses. When captured, the fishermen had 909 red snapper earlier this year. The recreational red snapper season was closed at the time in both state and federal waters.
ICE FROM NOWHERE: Email: “Why you should never fish alone....because no one is able to back up your "stories".
Hi Jay, I was drifting the middle grounds on Friday the 4th, alone. Approximately 12:30 pm I heard what sounded like an incoming missile, it started out faint and became VERY loud within seconds. The whole episode lasted less than 2-3 seconds and about 15 feet off my stern I saw a splash in the water and what looked to me like a bowling ball size piece of blue ice!
By the time I reeled in the rod, started the motor and spun around to try and net the thing, it was gone, presumably melted. I saw if floating so that rules out a rock, and the fact it was gone by the time I got there, I just know it was a piece of ice, probably from a plane???
I can only imagine what would have happened if it had it my boat or my head!
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(Steve: Don't sell your sighting short. Sure, it's easy to go with the outfall from a jet bathroom angle but take it from a meteorite hunter like myself -- actually, I've never actually found one -- there are meteorites that are very icy. Hell, you may have watched dollars melt away, considering a meteorite with certification – one that has been seen as it falls – is a hot seller in the collectibles realm. J-mann)
Friday, July 04, 2008: Waves: 2-2.5 foot south wind swell, short-period. Water clarity: Fair (at best). Water tmeps: Nasty mid-50s along the beach, a tad warmer out a ways. Bay: mid-70s.
Happy America Day. There is a double-load of anglers in-town. It’s 4:30 a.m. and already I see trailered boats moving about and some surfcasters walking beachward. The boat folks are likely in for a lot more action that most surfcasters. In fact, we’ll go to the active side of things first as bayside, inlet and nearshore fluking remains torrid. The numbers of hookups is damn near epic in some zones. “Fish after fish” has been the description for many fluke drifters. Then the misery, as I now have heard a couple tales of 30 to 1 ratios. I don’t know if I can take this to heart but a second-hand report of a boatload of flukers near Great Bay had 100 fluke and one single keeper. I’ll add to that those rarer reports of decent ratios, especially around Barnegat Inlet and during ideal drifts in Great Bay. The ocean fluking is picking up, as expected. GS S has flatties on the periphery.
By the by, there are tons of fluke in the surf, especially near jetties. However, the surf remains cold and relatively dirty.
Whether it’s just one of those things that everyone is now using it, But GULP! continues to be the trick is you want any chance of bettering your keeper ratio of fluke. I’m hearing different angles of using it. Some folks swear by using sheets and cutting to squid-like strips while other folks are going with any number of the huge assortment of shaped GULP!. I’m also hearing it’s important to trade it out as the juices drain from the pieces. Per usual, you don’t want to let that stuff dry on the hook unless you have pneumatic tolls to chisel it off the hook.
I had a second report of kingfish in the surf going almost exclusively for GULP! or related fake-o baits. I had one interesting report of a kingfish chocking itself on a larger bunker bait for bass, somehow getting a huge chunk and hook in its mouth.
Back to that cold water. It was one of the coldest watered Junes I can recall and July has been no bargain. It is, of course, this steady south wind. Even the breaks in the wind aren’t long enough to allow the warmer water (which is not that far out to sea) to drift in. However, even the warmer water is not that mild. I recall a number of Independence Day weekend where we had 70-degree water. One possible useful angle on the cooler seas is the fact we already have a Verde Island tropical storm, one of the earliest ever registered. Disconcertingly, two-thirds of all hurricanes originating in that near-Africa zone, come up the temperate Atlantic, i.e. our way. Sure, I enjoy the surf from such systems but the flood and wind dangers are all too real for a paltry building like my Ship Bottom house.
Bassing is just not so hot. I say that despite a few keeper reports from boat and beach. And the bunker showing remains massive. It just seems the big-bass biomass has broken up, some moving a bit north and the rest sinking back southward. However, this is not to say there won’t be a steady showing of stripers for the entire summer. The usual spots, especially near Barnegat Inlet and the BH Inlet shoals, will hold fish.
Here’s another less-than-stellar ridge report – with affine final attitude (despite the quietude of keepers): “Jay,
Got your report re: some possible bluefin run-offs at the Ridge and got
my crew together for a first run. Left the dock @ 3:30 AM and was
fishing the Ridge by 5:30 AM. Trolled without a hit or knockdown for 5
hours. Even set-up on the edge of the ridge for bluefish and chummed
and chunked bunker without a hit. Marked bait and big fish but no
takers. We were however treated to the greatest show on earth. For 4
hours we had very large Whales in excess of 40 feet breaching and
feeding on some form of bait. There were pods(that's right pods as in
plural) of adults and younger whales numbering anywhere from 4 to 8
whales per pod. They appeared to be migrating South. Could these be
Humpbacks? They appeared to have a huge hump by the dorsal but they
were every bit of 40 feet as my boat is 24 feet and they dwarfed it
coming sometimes as close as 200 yds from my boat. It was spectacular
and I captured it as best I could with Video as we were trolling and
trying to stay out of the way of these behemoths. Around 11:00 AM the
entire ridge as far as I could see was erupting with bait all over the
surface that appeared to look like rainfish but the dimpling was much
larger. We trolled all thru this without a touch as well. Could these
have been the squid you mentioned in your report. Couldn't get a visual
since as as soon as you got close to them the bait would sound.
On the way in about 7 miles from the beach were bunker pods the size of
football fields and a huge purse seiner was out there corralling these.
I guess this is legal outside the 3 mile limit.
Still a spectacular day on the water with plenty of life if no fish in
the box.
Potter”
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Is the commercial limit STILL 14"?
That seems obscene considering the recreational numbers.
I wouldn't count on any of those slightly undersize fish being left near the inlets once they find them.
According to an article in the Star Ledger, apparently New York is trying to get changes made to our regs to be more in line with theirs and to share more equally in the take. Bigger fish, lesser quantity.
Commercials on one side, NY on the other, and gas prices through the roof. Maybe its time to pack it in, sit on the beach and count windmills.
Ron K.
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Note: Money for Simply Bassing is being collected from shop and should be divvied out to the shops soon. If you’re a winner, collect winning at the shop where you weighed in the fish.
July 2, 08 -- Weekly wildness
Eels a Hot Topic in Tokyo
I don’t know why I’m always stunned by odd fish stories coming out of Japan. Whereas most world residents eat, on annual average, a few ounces of fish per day, each Japanese man, woman and child apparently eats in the ballpark of 1,000 pounds a day – much of that before noon, reserving afternoons for whale blubber and Big Macs. Somehow this relatively small country has managed to single-mouthedly eat most fish species out of house, home and existence.
And they’re none too careful about what type fish they eat. Many Japanese have ingested so much mercury that, on very hot days, their heads nearly explode.
I bring that up since the Japanese cure for hot weather – I assure you I’m not making this up – is eating broiled eel.
Interesting cultural note: When I look at my own personal list of things to do when trying to cool down on a steamy day, eating eel is -- let me check -- not to be found within my first 1,000 choices. (I’m really into lists, by the way).
Already lost to Asian history is the name of the person who determined, on a scalding hot day, that eating a load of steaming eel meat staves off heat and humidity. It’s not a long shot to suggest that it may have been someone with a load of writhing eels to sell, as the ice beneath the elongated fish rapidly melted under a July sun. Whomever, the concept struck a cord with sweating folks in The Land of the Rising Sun -- and eel-eating history was ma
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