mad gaffer blackfish report mon. nov. 28

[Capt Ray Mad Gaffer]

We came home late yesterday, and I unfortunately have the flu, so I'm putting this report up this morning. We picked away in the morning, and then in the afternoon , We hot a wreck , and caught some more fish, we had several limits on the boat, and several people with three or four fish , But most of the fish just made it, and it was nothing like the day before when we had all big jumbo fish. The fishing has been sporadic at times, as well as great at times . If you stay with it you'll end up with a catch your fish. It looks to me that we do not! Have a shortage of fish , It looks like the fish or not hungry, if you look at the machine while you are fishing, You see the bait come under the boat and then you see the fish. This is not something that is synonymous with black fish, I feel that they're eating something else, that we're not giving them . I believe that those clouds bait are shrimp, and or clouds of some kind a crab that is very small . I have noticed that these fish are spitting both up, it's probably a product of warmer water. Perhaps when the water cools off this bait won't be around, if there were a lack of fish they wouldn't bite in the morning , And then in the afternoon, I think it's only that they are well fed. We catch lots of shorts , And if you look at the shorts there is nothing scrawny about them , they all have small heads and big bodies, which is synonymous, of well fed fish . The first time that I saw the readings under the boat with the bait, I took a diamond jig , And went outside I thought they were striped bass , or bluefish, I didn't catch anything, but the people around me were picking at blackfish, And when the readings left, they stop picking, until the readings came back , it was than, That I realized that these were blackfish and not blues, or bass. Maybe when the water cools down, they will go back to their normal ways of feeding. But the fishing is well worth doing , and we are still coming in with good catches, and sometimes great catches, it's only the end of November. Our next open day, is Wednesday call for information and reservations

[bulletbob]

Very well stated capt Ray, and your explanation makes perfect sense.. A lot of fishermen don't realize that tog will come out of the rocks, and will raise up into the water column when there is a lot of suspended bait such as sea worm "hatches" ,grass shrimp or other small shrimp, clouds of small squid etc...
Its not done here in NY /NJ very often these days but shrimp chumming for tog was highly productive at one time years ago, and the tog would hit hooked shrimp drifted just below the surface.. I can certainly see that happening on rocky ocean structure just as it does in shallower water.. if there are clouds of natural bait near the tog, they will most likely "key" on it just as so many other fish species do.. Green or white crabs on any given day may simply not be "matching the hatch", and if the fish are stuffed anyway, that could explain "picky" fish, or lots of shorts... bob