The heart of the summer season is upon us as the dog days of July have the waters running hot. Top billing will be fluke fishing as the flatfish amass inshore to dole out great action for both party boats and private boaters. Bluefish may be sticking around mid-shore to produce on night chunking trips. Warm waters usher in the tropical visitors such as Spanish macks, mahimahi, bonito and bar jacks on the inshore grounds. Tuna fishing should be really picking up both inshore and offshore at the canyons. Remember sea bass regulations are now with an open season from July 1st to August 31, minimum 12.5 inches and a 1 fish limit. Fire up the BBQ, here’s how to get some fillets to cook up.
RARITAN BAY
A lot of the activity in Raritan Bay will be around Sandy Hook on the bayside as Coast Guard Row is the spot to drift for fluke in the shallower depths of 10 to 20 feet. Flatfish will also be the main attraction in the deeper channels of Chapel Hill Channel, off the Ammo Pier and along the Raritan Reach. Normal unglamorous three-way swivel squid skirt rigs tipped with spearing and squid are enough to get you into the game, but bucktails tipped with longer strip baits will attract larger doormats to the hook. Spermaceti Cove will host a potpourri of species including those fluke, but also with porgies, tailor bluefish and sporadic remnant stripers. Bluefish generally stay within the bay through the month and can be caught on poppers or swimming plugs simply by blindcasting or searching for blitzing schools that sometimes amass out by the Rip area in the churny waters. The bayside piers at Keansburg and Belford also offer opportunity to catch fluke and blues right form the planks sans a boat. More savvy anglers know that night time livelining eels off the piers will stick 10 to 25 pound stripers that hang around all through the summer. If we’re lucky some weakfish will show up off of Flynn’s Knoll and inside the bay by the Highlands Bridge where small soft baits or drifted sandworms usually find their mark in the low light hours.
NORTHERN COAST
It was a sea bass bonanza for the short open season in June as scores of sea biscuits hit the decks of boats though now the limit is down to only one fish which is basically a bycatch thrown bone for fluke anglers. Try to target the biggest of the sea bass by dropping diamond jigs and bouncing them off the bottom if you want to put a keeper in the cooler at spots like the Farms, 17 Fathoms and rocky structure piles. Fluke are hitting 1 to 2 ounce bucktails off the Elberon Rocks, Rattlesnake and Klondike areas though you have to bounce them between the rocks and be sure not to hang up and lose your rig. Keep the bouncing light and work the bucktails over the rocks into the grooves between the rocks where fluke lay to ambush passing prey. The reef sites at Sandy Hook reef and the Sea Girt Reef usually have the lobster pots out by now and warmwater visitors like Spanish macks and chicken mahimahi tend to gravitate around the hi-fliers. Spanish can be trolled up with small 3-inch flash feathers and mahi can be sniped by throwing bucktails tipped with Gulp on the Hi-Flier pot lines. There’s also a chance cobia will have moved in by now as that fishery has really gotten pretty darn good over the years. Look for brown shadows that appear to be sharks and chances are they are cobia. Launch a live eel or bucktail out to them to tempt a strike. Chopper blues will stick around through the summer as spot off the Mud Hole ledges are a good area to drift with butterfish or bunker chunks to get screamed by 6 to 14 pound slammers. Smart anglers dialed into stripers know that the linesiders push off into the 60 to 70 foot depths where livelined eels on planer boards can get you tight with monster 30 to 50-pound bass even through July.
CENTRAL COAST
The Manasquan River had non stop action on tailor to chopper blues of 1 to 5 pounds all along Dog Beach for the month of June and that will continue through July. Early morning anglers can toss poppers off the sodbanks of the river to pull blues with bone-jarring topwater strikes. The river also has a prolific fluke fishery happening now with the bulk of the fish out more toward the inlet on the east side of the drawbridge out to the inlet then right outside of the inlet. Night time river fishing with soft baits under dock lights will get you into schoolie stripers as well as any weakfish that may be prowling about, especially right outside the canal outflow waters. Barnegat Bay will be lit with fluke all throughout the shallow waters in any channels or cuts leading into Oyster Creek and Double Creek and by the 40 marker. The Rolling Rock green 33 can is always a hot spot to drift with light bucktails and teaser rigs. Barnegat Bay is also tons of summer fun to anchor up with a few clam chum logs out to send back small #4 hooks tipped with clam bits to hang a bunch of beasties like kingfish, spot, blowfish and any other tropical jacks and even juvenile cobia that enter the bay. Outside of Barnegat Inlet, mahimahi will be lining up on the Hi-Flier and buoys at Barnegat Ridge where bucktails will again be the key to success. You can also opt to toss back live killies around the floating structure to pull mahi ranging from 1 to 6 pounds. Trolling around with feather and clark spoons you never know what may be around to hit if you feel like a surprise. Cobia here will too be hanging around the Axel Carlson reef to hit live eels.
OFFSHORE
Last year, bluefin tuna amassed out by the Tolten Lump and the Mohawk wreck as they fed on squid schools in the area, but the regs change daily so you have to stay on top of what sizes you can target. As of this writing in early June, right now it’s a one fish limit of bluefin between 27 and 47 inches but that can change we can only hope. Offshore yellowfin tuna are still at a three fish limit and they will be at the Hudson Canyon and surrounding 60 to 80 mile water wrecks like the Winnecone, Triple Wrecks and Resor Wreck. The yellowbirds may push closer in to 40 to 50 miles at the Chicken Canyon and Mako Hotel and Atlantic Princess areas where trolled squid spreader bars and cedar plugs are the go-to offerings. Don’t overlook the mahi opportunity offshore as you can fill a cooler with the fish, though there is now a 10 fish per man or 60 fish per vessel bag limit with no minimum size restriction. Trolled feathers will easily get you into fish along the midshore ridges and around offshore lobster pots or any floating logs or other debris for that matter.
We’re full swing into summer, now’s the time to take advantage of some warm weather fun fishing opportunity! A mahi dinner sound great right about now.