Glory Days Let's Hear Em

[Gerry Zagorski]

I'll start here....

Weakfish in the Raritan Reach as fast as you could get your rubber worm tipped with a Sandworm back in the water....

Tuna fishing in the Canyons, bloody decks when they come in spurts and you can't keep up, wearing out your arms and the boat is littered with carnage and coming home full with the entire hold filled.

Spring and Fall Stripers up on top and blowing up on plugs and down on the bottom with bait and jigs...

Founder fishing that was so good all you had to do was fish for a few hours....

Maybe I'm living in the past but let's hear some stories of the Glory days past and present....

[John D.]

Had a 12’ semi v Hull cartopper with 4hp and sonar that would launch from keansburg beach to the reach (yes I know dumb) in mid 90s and destroy the weaks avg size of 2-4lb with big ones pushing 7lbs

Fishing off the old keansburg pier in the early 80s and catching limitless fluke with avg of 1.5-3#.

Winter flounder I did in the other flounder thread at marine park and rum runner in the mid 80s

[Gumada]

After a cold night whiting would wash up on the beach along Asbury. People would pick them up off the beach “frost fish”.

No stripers in the late 70’s , 80’s. A 7 lb fish would win the contest at Fred’s B+T.

The flounder were a nuisance when you were striper fishing with worms, they would suck down a 3/0 hook.

Weakfish were everywhere in Barnegat bay, chumming with grass shrimp.

Fishing for whiting right next to he foreign factory ships.

[SaltLife1980]

Night BlueFish trips outta LBI! So crazy that you couldnt lift your arms the next day bc you caught so many!! Dad and I would have to throw our cloths in the trash when we got back to the house. Looked like we were in a war zone

[bulletbob]

The Weakfishing with plastic worm/sandworm in the Reach was good back in the early 90's no doubt... however, 10 years earlier between the channels, you needed NO bait, just a tiger tail. This was sunset into the night fishing. Drop it down, rod in holder, no action needed other than the drifting boat, and you were into massive tide runners one after another,,, Seldom anything less than 6 pounds, with some as big as 12 or 13, and all you could carry.. Sadly a lot of guys carried a hundred home time after time....


Flounder fishing right off Union beach where I lived... Just drop the anchor, bat a few bank mussels around the boat and in minutes an all out blitz of flounder unlike anything one could imagine these days in only 10 foot of water right off the beach a few hundred feet.. BIG, a 12 incher was a baby, and lots of 18 inchers.. Some huge yellowtails mixed in as well.. Never saw school stripers in those days when flounder fishing in those days like we see today.

Fishing a wreck right in Raritan/Sandy Hook bay, somewhere out past Raritan Reach. No one knew about that wreck, I don't think it was all that big, but a guy from his marina gave my friend the loran number one time in around 82 or 83.. We hit it and it was a motherlode of massive tog right in the bay with boats all around us unaware.. Huge blacks one after another till we ran out of greens, and then a few more on whatever legs, shell fragments we could scrape off the floor of the boat... Got a massive Trigger there as well.. I don't think that wreck exists any more, or it might be covered, but it was like nothing I had ever seen the one time I fished it.

Also remember lights out blackfishing in lovely sept/oct weather in shirt sleeves on sunny calm afternoons, and if you had a decent arm you could skip a rock to the shoreline from where we were fishing in pretty shallow water, 30 feet or less off the Red Church in Llberon... No limits, either bag or size, Plenty of room for all, and the fish were always there spring and fall.. No freezing your ass off in ""backfish weather"".. blackfish weather in those days was a gorgeous sunny early October day, in the mid 60's..Then one day, someone found out that blackfish were good to eat raw with soy sauce and maybe some thinly sliced daikon, and we are where we are today..

Fluke fishing where it was just non stop all day, until your arms hurt and you just had enough and wanted to leave, and all you need was a cheap ass box of squid.. want a doormat?.. Leave the rig as is, except for a massive hook, and put a whole squid on... When the fluke started to get annoying, move to where the boats we clustered and mohawking blues.. usually not monsters, but decent fish 2-5 pounds, and they showed somewhere almost every time we went for fluke, sometimes you would see the birds on the horizon, other times, they were destroying your squid strips, and cutting your hooks and you simply tied on an AVA right where you were fluking, beat them up for a while, and then when they moved off, went back to fluke which were always ready to hit after the blues were gone...


Whiting and Ling that were ALWAYS there in massive numbers, all winter every winter year after year, until one sad day, they weren't. Started in november usually, and typically lasted until the water went below 39 degrees.. That number was given to me by a wise old head boat captain, and many years ago, I kept an eye on coastal temps and he was pretty close.. Mild years the fishing lasted all winter,, Some years it slowed in late January, but was gangbusters again by april.. A partyboat might go down for a month back then, but never for 4 months unless thats what the captain wanted...

i recall when the Atlantic Highland boats all ran all winter, as there were plenty of winter fish to catch, and then in march they started fishing the river for flounder... The ONLY thing that stopped them was when the bay froze to the point where they simply could not get out... I DO recall ice on the bay one weekend, but one of the boats broke it for the others on the way out.. Might have been the Super Cat or the old Sea Fox, can't really recall the boat but I do remember it happening...

I remember fishing the shrewsbury river and if nothing else was around, the eels would bite all day every day, until you got really sick of looking at them and handling them.. they were there by the millions and millions. It was like a plague.. until one day they weren't... I wish i could go back... Or at very least i wish the fish would come back... bob

[Gerry Zagorski]

Ahhh.... Great stories here, love reading them so please keep them coming...

[EddieG]

Have a few but for this time of year I would have to say winter flounder fishing in shark river. 15 yrs ago I remember renting a boat and pulling 30-40 fish easy even bringing up two at a time sometimes on the chum pot... now I live 2 minutes from shark river and take my dog for a run every day there and don’t see anybody catching anything not even one.

[Gerry Zagorski]

Ok so one day burnt in my memory for ever...

Me and Russ, 2 sales people who usually have flexible schedules.. He is free this particular day but I have an I have an important confernce call I cant miss but I wanna fish too so I tell him” I’m in” and will take the call on the boat....

We’re out by Keyport early morning on a blue bird spring day and so far nothing happening....

I go down in the cabin, close the hatch to drown out the sounds of the seas and start my call... A few minutes later Russ is hooking up fish after fish, opens the cabin door and hands me a pole with a Striper on.. Russ laughing his ass off and people on the call asking “what’s so funny and what’s that noise” ?

Sad to say Russ passed away suddenly a few years afterwards but I still can remember him and this day like yesterday..

Sandworms were the ticket that day as were me and Russ.....

[porgylber]

As a 10 year old kid, going out on a party boat with my best friend and his Dad. We went fishing in the spring for mackerel. He taught me how to jig for them. I remember how proud I was to catch my first fish and bring home my 8 mackerel to my Mom.
She then taught me how to clean them and cook them.
As the years went by, I would go out with them for blues, sea bass, flounder, fluke and blackfish. And of course porgies! We would travel out to Greenport on Long Island, because the big humpbacks were there! We would come home with burlap bags stuffed with those porgies, then give away plenty to neighbors on the street.
Fun times!

[Brewlugger]

Growing up I was fortunate to have my Father take me along. We did it all Flounder Whiting , Ling , Mackeral and alot of Blues. We had alot of good trips and some not so good but always good times. We would trailer the boat from Mahwah to Delaware bay in May for tiderunner Weakfish I always looked forward to those trips .When I got older I started tuna fishing, I believe in 1988 there was a great run of Tuna in the Mudhole from late June into October. Big Yellowfin at Little Italy and alot of boats there day and night. Anyone here recall that great fishing? My glory days were any time I spent fishing with my Dad.

[hudsonfisherman]

Manasquan inlet, I was just a kid around 1963-1965.We would fish off the rocks on the inlet side just past the end of the seawall by carlsons corner using small long long shank hooks with a tiny bit of fresh surf clam that we purchased from Carlsons and catching endless buckets of blowfish. Over the course of one summer we learned to clean them with one cut and turning them kinda inside out avoiding breaking the stomach or the acids would eat your fingernails away after cleaning a few hundred. Bergalls and blackfish were by-catch and we threw them all back ! we used to call the bergalls "sleepy fish" because rumor was if you ate to many of them it would make you sleepy.

[TogRipper]

Early 80's leaving on a party boat out of Belmar with my brother in January or February catching sacks of whiting. Bringing them home to be fried or made into a salad.
80's March with my best friend Jim and his dad in the Shrewsbury catching flounder all day and throwing back after we got 20.
80's with my dad and uncle's in April all the Mackeral you wanted from the Miss Belmar coming up five at a time.
May fishing from the beach of LBI in the mid 90's catching stripers from the beach during their big comeback.
June Weakfishing in Barnegat Bay in the 90's with my brother chumming shrimp or drifting shredder crab and stopped counting at 150 fish in four hours.
July in the early 80's fishing from the Sea King out of Belmar when their was no fluke limits in size or bag and remember them being sold on the docks.
August blowfishing in Barnegat Bay in the early 2000's with sabiki rigs bringing home as many as you wanted.
September 90's fishing from the Skylarker chunking yellowfins in a morning blitz.
October blackfishing from the Barnegat Rocks catching slobs.
November night fishing in the 90's on the Freddie eeling stripers and guaranteed a keeper every trip.
November Striper fishing off Barnegat Inlet with my bro in 2009 jigging stripers on every drop.
Crabbing anywhere and getting a bushel.
Thanks Gerry for starting a great post.

[Duffman]

....Palace II outta Hoboken with my Dad and Mom, getting there in our baby blue diesel Volkswagon Rabbit and fishing for mackeral on mothers day ......and watching Dad play a mean game of poker below deck

...Buying longneck Buds at Teds in a brown paper bag before longnecks were a thing, then jumping on the Happy for the afternoon fluke trip.

...Summer vaca in wildwood every year hitting up the Royal Flush for night blues.

...Magic hour 330-900 trips and Nordic eels.

...Miss Take II Thanksgiving morning striper trips.

...Earle Pier when you were actually able to fish it by boat.

...NJF tuna trips by AndyS.....some of the best $hit ever and it had nothing to do with the catching

...Peconic bay weakfish trips out of Port Of Egypt.

...renting skiffs from Margos, Jacks and Schupps

[Reel Class]

The weakfish bite in September in Raritan Bay in early fall/late Summer from the late 90's just past 2K was pure insanity. I was off for Yom Kippur from work (as many of you know I am a teacher) in 2001, just 10 days or so after 9/11, and my buddy and I hit the Capt John out of Keyport (a lot of the other boats were doing half-days and we wanted to make a day of it) and we shot out to the reach in his Gulfcraft (later became the Voyager) and started drifting sandworms. Crowd was light. First couple drifts were ehhh, after roughly the second drift though, everything turned on and we slaughtered the fish the rest of the trip until the boat was limited out with weakfish (14 fish at 14" then) and headed back to the dock at about 12:30 with coolers full of 16-20" weakies plus a few porgies and small blues. I've had MANY great days of catching weakfish, especially in Barnegat Bay, but this day is tops in my memory.

I've had so many great days winter flounder fishing it's hard to really pick one. When I first started chartering in ~04-05' the spring runs in the Manasquan River and upper Barnegat Bay were great. We had MANY days where we limited the boat out or came close to it (10 fish per person at that time) and the best part was I was burning 2-5 gallons of fuel doing it lol. But the one day that stands out was on Capt Robbie's Sea Hunter in 2004 - again off for Spring Break my buddy Brian and I decided to jump on knowing the bite was good out at the Cedars (and I've had MANY good days at that spot!!!) light crowd, and we chugged out got the anchor in and proceeded to beat on the flounder for the half day. 2004 was the last year that I remember there was no BAG limit on flounders so we pasted them. In about 2.5 hours fishing I caught well over 20 nice flounder, only keeping 16 of them for the table. It was insane, drop and reel fishing. And for those of you that don't remember, the Raritan Bay Flounder fishery was a true world class fishery for that species, man I miss fishing for those fish up there :(

Fluke fishing has gone through so many ups and downs it's hard to say when the glory days were, but in the 80's and 90's you could scrape up a good catch of smaller fish (when the size limit was 14 or 15") just drifting the shallows along the beach. You didn't need to fish the rough stuff with fancy bucktails to catch actual keepers! Many times 18-20" fish would take pools on party boats lol. With that said though, we've had MANY great days bucktailing fluke on my boat and I think this fishery is ever changing and the population is in pretty good shape despite the draconian regulations.

Seabass fishing these days is BETTER than it was 30 years ago.

Toggin' these days is a joke. Fancy, expensive tackle, fancy rigs, jigs (which I absolutely love doing!)... We never had to fish into December to put nice catches together. Like now, the best fishery is September-October, BEFORE "the opener" in November.... Also April was a great month as was May and even into June. Yes fishing was better for them because of less pressure in the 80's and 90's but it was NEVER so specialized and almost as elite as it is now.

I even miss the days of taking my boat out to the offshore reef, the edge of the Mud Hole, Mud dump, or even inside of that and anchoring up and chumming for bluefish from May-October. It was a great fishery and it was GREAT for charter and party boats... Happy people, lots of fish, and great memories were made.

Striper fishing now is just like fluking - always changing but still pretty good just different. This fishery changes with the types of bait these fish are chasing, and when some baits are more abundant than others, the fishery goes in that general direction.

Great post Gerry!

[bassnblues]

As a teenager in the 80s with my dad launching out of Chris’s landing in sea brightt. Barely had to run the motor to get into all the fluke, weaks and cocktail blues you wanted.

When I first got my own boat in the 90s, fishing the highlands bridge with frozen bunker catching stripers.

Drifting for fluke off officers row and the coast guard stating and being able to catch keepers.

I really miss weakfish. I remember a couple of days out of keyport. My fish finder wasn’t working but I bailed them by drifting worms over the edge of the reach. Also chumming with grass shrimp out of barnegat light. Had some awesome trips for big ones on the sea fox.

Many more...

[Billfish715]

Gerry, You must really have the fishing "Jones". Don't worry. It happens to all of us at this time of the year. We go to bed every night with dreams of the fishing that many of our kids and grandkids might never see. Even when we share stories of the good old days with some of the younger members on this board, they won't quite understand. The young guys today will certainly talk about their good old days later in their lives but they need to hear about what they missed. What was different then compared to now, is the abundance and varieties of fish that were so close and so accessible.

Flounder........they could be caught in Raritan, Sandy Hook and Barnegate Bays as well as the Shrewsbury, Navesink, Manasquan and Shark Rivers. Add to that, in the ocean off the Cedars of Sandy Hook. Party boats would line the rivers and bays in places that they are never seen anymore.

Fluke........from the jetties, rowboats, docks, along the sandy beaches, from the surf.......everywhere.

Weakfish........jelly worms, tiger tails, nordic eels.........in the bay, bridge abutments and mixed in with the fall run of bluefish and stripers

Bluefish........Bingle Bananas, trolling with pony tails/nylons, the Klondike, Augies, Annex, Acid Grounds, Barnegate and Manasquan Ridges, chumming.........all summer long

Mackerel........full coolers, stripers mixed in, three miles off the beach

Whiting.........from the Long Branch Pier, twilight fishing, fleets of boats on the hills at night looked like floating cities, ling mixed in

Blowfish.......Barnegate Bay, small pieces of squid on high-lo rigs with freshwater gear. Off the jetties in Long Branch........almost everywhere.

Tuna.......footballs on cedar plugs and feathers on the Klondike with skipjacks mixed in.

Bonito.......chumming on the inshore hills with spearing with bluefish, bluefins, false albacore mixed in

Seabass.......there were too many fluke to bother fishing for them

Blackfish...... party boats and guys with secret spots caught them.........no state of the art fishfinders back then

Loran Numbers.........got you close but not like GPS and sonar units of today

No Loran Numbers........compass headings and dead reckoning.......Along the beach, you had to line up a flag pole or a house on the beach or a jetty to find your spot.

Stripers........tie up to the old railroad tressel abutments by the Highlands Bridge and drift worms. Troll umbrellas or bunker spoons up against the Sea Bright wall. The water came right to the wall back then.

Giant Tuna.........in the Mud Hole in the fall

Yellowfins........in the Mud Hole at Little Italy

Outdoor Fishing Editors.........Ristori, Brandt, Duffy.......to name a few


There is so much technology today to help even a novice fisherman do well, but the numbers of fish and varieties of fish have dwindled substantially. Still, younger fishermen today will be telling stories of the good old days to their wide-eyed kids and grandkids in the future. And that is how the tradition lives and thrives. Stories of fishing and fishermen from now and long ago are what keeps our sport alive.

Someone will no doubt start a thread about the old fishing/charter boats and bait and tackle stores which were so much of the history of fishing in New Jersey.

Thanks, Gerry for the starting the thread.

[bulletbob]

quote:
"Toggin' these days is a joke. Fancy, expensive tackle, fancy rigs, jigs (which I absolutely love doing!)... We never had to fish into December to put nice catches together. Like now, the best fishery is September-October, BEFORE "the opener" in November.... Also April was a great month as was May and even into June. Yes fishing was better for them because of less pressure in the 80's and 90's but it was NEVER so specialized and almost as elite as it is now.

Amen,, when blacks were still around, before people went crazy about snapping up
as many as they could get a hold of to sell so they could be eaten raw, it was a "boat pole' type of fishing and everyone was in the game.. Took a half hour to get the "touch" but the bites came so quickly you always had another chance in ultra short order... No "mystique", no "special touch", no 'blackfish weather"., no custom built $750 rod and reel. Just a good eating bottom fish that bit willingly, fought hard, and required a short adjustment period to get good at.. Lord how I miss those days..
now, you get 50 guys on a party boat, and sometimes 30 or more of them go home without a keeper, and the explanation is "well thats blackfishing".
yeah I guess so now, but for 100 or so years it wasn't... bob

[Captain Hook]

Great winter fishing today in NJ...:mad:

[frugalfisherman]

Nobody mentioned blowfish. Fishing of the railroad bridge between Brielle and PP you could catch all you wanted in the early 60's. Of course now there are no trespassing signs.

[Skolmann]

-LBI circa 1976, massive school of bluefish in the #7-12 class push a school of bait fish into the beach at high and get trapped by a sandbar when the tide drops. Bite lasted for hours, guys catching well over 100 (some released, some not) on anything you threw.

-March 1996 my best friend and I did a bluefin charter out of Cape Hatterass Marina. We brought 18 bluefin (12 for me, 6 for him as he eventually felt the effects of a big sea) to the boat from an estimated #185-325...kept our limit of one and tagged/released the rest. One the way in we trolled up black fin tuna & king mackerel.

-Halloween mid 2000’s, on a non sponsors boat out of Leonardo we had non stop action anchored in the middle of nowhere with striped bass...nothing under 38”s. We’re tight on bass before the anchor was tight.Literally we would flip our clam bait out from the stern/starboard corner and as soon as the boat got in the zone you were hooked up...took a step our a left and fought the fish, while the next guy casted out, once the fish was close we took another step to the left and the fish was netted...you repaired and got back in line. Went on like this for 4 hours.

-Afternoon live lining trip in Raritan Bay, left with a full well of live bunker..found a school of bass (nothing giant #17-30)...went through a full live well of bait in short order..reloaded on bait...went back to the spot and again went through a full live well of bait...did this another 2 times. Bass would hit the bunker within 30 seconds of being in the water, even fresh dead bunker drifted out produced a bite....4 man charter put well over 200 bass (only keeping a 4 man limit) in the boat.

-Fluke fishing in the Manasaquan River aboard the Reel Class, I caught over 110 fluke bucktailing on a 6 hour trip..no keepers but when using trout gear even the shorts put on a good show.

-As mentioned the Raritan Bay weakfish bite was epic at times.

-April 2015 fishing the Marathon Hump, we fished live pilchards on medium spinning gear and crushed the black fin tuna to #25.

-Late March a few years ago (when we had that very early stripper & bluefish jig bite. Jason and I were aboard the Golden Eagle, we each got our two keeper bass on our first two drops..we proceeded to catch a few more bass while also filling 2.5 garbage barrels with bluefish


Those are just the ones that come to mind off the top of my head.

[june181901]

Fishing on the Viking 2 out of Princess Bay. I'd come home on leave and my buddy and I would go there from Bayonne. We'd fill two burlap bags with whiting and ling, bring them back to Slim's Cafe in Bayonne and hand them out to the guys who hung around there. Also recall on those trips the boats from Belford selling lobsters for .50 cents as they would pull along side the Viking.Winter of '65 was the last time we did that.

[Capt Sal]

Shorts?

[bassnblues]

Catching ling in sandy hook bay behind officers row.

Porgys in the shrews by the rumson bridge.

[AndyS]

I would rather not dwell on the past and how great fishing used to be, but instead look to the future and what we can do save some for future generations.

[emcjim]

Sept., 1966 bluefin tuna at 17 fathoms and the Farms.

Started on the Teal w/ the late Capt. Fred Moore. Caught our live bait w/ gold hooks on the bottom. Mostly tinker mackerel, w/ some ling & whiting mixed in. Live-lined live bait in the chum slick. That was the start for me. Rainy weekday in mid-Sept. Nice catch of 20-to-35# "schoolies".

The following weekend, 2 of us in my 16' Boston Whaler at the Farms in a partyboat bluefish fleet. A tub in the small cockpit to keep the bait alive. 2 skipjack, 2 25# tuna, and 2 50-55# tuna. Probably got noticed on the Miss Belmar when they passed close to us returning home. We held up the 2 big ones. No size limits, bag limits -- sold the fish at Carlson's Fishery for $0.06/lb.

Next trip on the Whaler a week later also at the Farms. 2 of us caught 11 bluefin, 25-to-35#. Cloudy day, filled the cockpit. Again Carlson's offered $0.06/lb, but this time gutted. Remember a trying to get a live-lined tinker mackerel away from the boat, but it kept diving under the outboard motor. Replaced the tinker w/ a ling which also tried to dive under the motor, but was not fast enough. A flash in the water, and the tuna was on -- right at the boat.

Labor Day weekend, 1969. Again 2 of us on the Whaler. Huge fleet strung out at the edge of the Mud Hole from 17 to the Farms. We moved the the South end of the fleet, so we might have been on the Farms or close to it. Bill got a false albie, and I got a fish on that I played for 1-1/4 hours. We somehow got the tuna into the boat at 7:20PM. It was longer than the cockpit was wide. Head went up the side on one side and the tail went up the other side. Arrived at the AH ramp in the dark. Someone asked "Tuna, at the point of the hook?". I said, "From the point of the hook, ran about 14 miles at 140". Don't know if he believed me, or even knew what I meant by 140 (magnetic course). No GPS, no Loran, no sonar, just a compass.

The younger readers might find it hard to believe those bluefin tuna stories, as inshore bluefins are scarce, and have been for a long time. But I have a good memory (even at age 81) and all of the above is true.

[Reel Class]

Nobody mentioned blowfish. Fishing of the railroad bridge between Brielle and PP you could catch all you wanted in the early 60's. Of course now there are no trespassing signs.

Bruce, there are still tons of blowfish around there just aren't many in the river. Barnegat Bay was absolutely loaded for 2 months last summer. We even caught lots of them in some of the creeks where the crabs are. I'm not sure why there aren't many in the river anymore though.

[Reel Class]

EMCJIM you also made me remember something else...

It was late September of 1990 and my dad and I hopped on the Norma-K II for an afternoon bluefish trip. We chugged out to the Manasquan Ridge, dropped the hook in and started chumming. JUMBO blues were coming up in minutes and we were all getting our asses kicked with 15-20# GATORS. Breaking them off, fighting them, etc. Bonito and albies were in the mix, and believe it or not, a few small schoolie bluefin tuna even made it to the boat. We were 6 miles off the beach, slaughtering these things and even had a couple tuna - amazing. This was around the time the mud hole tuna bite was slowing so it was really cool. I was 14 at the time and was amazed THEN. Great memories.

[TerriMc223]

Snapper fishing off the Main Street bridge in Manasquan's Watson's creek with a bobber and spearing which we "seined" with a beach towel by the Kidde beach back in the 60's. Always loved fishing for blowfish or whatever off the rocks at the Manasquan Inlet. I would time it to be there when the half day party boats would parade in and then out again. Loved watching all the boats!
Crabbing using a chicken neck tied to good string. Could feel the crab on there but had to pull the line in slowly and then one of the other kids would scoop them up with the net! using a crab trap was just not as much fun.

[Capt Sal]

When we went fluking 40 years ago we kept much smaller fish with no bag limit.I have been fluke fishing for over 60 years and have caught "ONE" fluke over ten pounds.If we had an 18'' limit back then the catch would have been drastically reduced!If we could keep 17'' fluke now the catch would increase.

[bassnblues]

When we went fluking 40 years ago we kept much smaller fish with no bag limit.I have been fluke fishing for over 60 years and have caught "ONE" fluke over ten pounds.If we had an 18'' limit back then the catch would have been drastically reduced!If we could keep 17'' fluke now the catch would increase.

When I started, everyone was complaining that NY instituted a 14” size limit. Nj was a few years behind.

[bigal427]

How about a good day of fall fluking or bluefin 5 miles out of Barnegat Inlet in the 70's

[Merle31483]

From those endless fall nights fishing on top of the highlands, seabrite, and the oceaniac bridges for stripers you guys all know who you are if you have ever fished these bridges back when we all could... To about 18 or so years ago myself and buddy going to belmar nailing weak fish both in the back of the river and the inlet as well fishing all night long for them than renting a boat in shark river and coming home with a cooler full of weekies and fluke driving home on the parkway with my eyes closed only to do it all over again the next night definitely a lot of fun

[NoLimit]

Heated hand rails from Atlantic Highlands to Brielle and burlap bags full of baseball bats

[Dclark2]

Remember going whiting fishing with my father on the magic hour boats. Not quite sure either Belmar or Point P. That was when I was 8 or 9 now I'am 69 so
you can do the math. They use to light the outside rail lights with matches no electric. Good fishing and the best with a west wind.....

'

[nmc02]

Bluefish trips that were nonstop w gators.....the night I jigged 27 yft myself in the spencer, 4 sword night in the hudson.

[BCinerie]

Oh the memories, always
Started with mackerel fishing in April , then to flounder in the manasquan off the wall! Then fluke all
Summer drifting the Mantaloking bridge area the mouth of canal catching enough for the entire neighborhood. Crabbing off my parents dock and catching enough crabs to sell
To the tourist for .50
Each. 7/8 inch jimmies. In between the that would gonsee Capt Bob on the Gambler for our bluefish outings. Fished the old bengal banana or a bunker back over chum. In the fall we caught false albacore as well. I remember a chilly fall
Trip on the Gamblwr and Capt mike from gambler probably 1980/1982 ish caught his first
false albacore on a smelt. Then The yellowfin at the Bacardi 1986/87. Sailed with john Larson on deep adventures 2. 150 for a trip
And selling the tuna for 2 bucks a lb for extra money. Strippers were a ghost fish. There used to be so many party
Boats sailing would clog the inlet. I still
Like watch the few left go IU t when I visit.