Western Raritan Bay, 8/14

[emcjim]

Joined a nice crowd for a Monday open boat trip, 7AM-2PM on the Misty Morn. Brought 13 shorts over the rail, but no keepers today. There were keepers on the boat -- Tyler (mate) was busy cleaning fish for quite awhile.

Started w/ the last of outgoing tide & flat calm. Excellent drift speed but virtually no action. The end-of-the-tide bite was a big disappointment. We moved E at slack tide, & finally we started to get a drift w/ the incoming tide and still flat calm. Action picked up. Eventually a ESE wind came up and moved us nicely w/ the incoming tide. On that tide we repeated drifts in one area, then moved to a different area, also repeating drifts. A pick in both areas.

Jim Balicki

[Skolmann]

Was out on the Misty last night. Probably had the best drifting conditions I've experienced all season-out going tide with a light West to NW west wind. Decent short action on a few drifts. Few keepers caught but not many. Snappers were hard to come by and I was only able to get 2 before we sailed. Caught a fat 17.75 fluke on snapper on the first drift and lost the second in a tangle. Only was able to jig up another short.