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!
