Winter Flounder Fishing

[torchee]

I toss clams out front at sandy hook for bass every spring late april - early may.
We always put out a flounder rod or 2 with worms.

Seems like when we time it right you can catch 2-3 in the wash as they leave Raritan bay -and the river. And maybe a bass as well...... So they must still populate Raritan.

Great kills holds flounder as well. I think its open this year.

[torchee]

Bob is right, def add a yellow grub....
people would put corn on to add yellow to the worm when i was a kid....

[WhaleFart]

Flounder fishing is a love hate for me, I almost only fish on land for them... for me its either an all out skunking or a slaughter. From land you can chum them with a pot, some dog food and some cooked yellow rice. I do the basic two hook rig with sandworms, however when they are active and you run out of bait you can catch them on sabiki rigs jigged on the bottom... most of the flounder i clean have mainly grass shrimp in them so it makes sense. I like posted above have caught them in the middle of summer in the river (Manasquan). Biggest flounder I got was about 4lbs off the surf mdw about 10 heads ago on a 6/0 hook.

[Irish Jigger]

Our annual trip to visit my brother in Mass early spring is always phenomenal flounder fishing. Boat is out of Quincy Mass for half day $450 up to 4 anglers and have never been disappointed. Non stop from start to finish and bring home 20 plus pounds of filets and fish up to 4+ lbs. 12” and 8 fish limit per man bag limit. Any other info pm me

[Ice Cream Bill]

Gerry,

Great seeing you, Joey da Fish and Dales529 at the RFA booth in Edison!

Irish Jigger: I am booked for Sunday July 8th on that same boat in Quincy. Capt is holding Sat pm trip if I want as well. May and June trips are all booked.

He is not a sponsor on this site, but I need some NJ Fishing guys to join me—feel free to PM me if interested. Limit is 8 flounder per angler!

Bill

[Irish Jigger]

Bill, Capt Jason is no joke when it comes to blackfishing either. Our flounder trip is always the first or second week of June. Has never let us down.

[Down Deep Sportfishing]

Capt. Chuck with Skip a Dory charters is another top producer in Boston

[hammer4reel]

Its been about 10 years now since they lowered the limit to 2 fish .
pretty sad it got to such a low point before the fishery was let crash.
If not rebuilt by now who knows if it ever will.

Fishing in Shark river and the Raritan bay was phenominal.
I'm sure the bay still has to have a decent run.

Shark river is so silted in with fine silt I don't ever think that fishery will come back.
The only way it would get good there again is if the state was forced to dredge the whole river. and that wont happen, we had a hard enough time fighting to just get the channel dredged correctly.
95% of the river is silted in .

They can take all the money for sand replentishment yet cant just do what should be done once, and be good for another 50 years there


.used to really enjoy being out there in march fishing for flundies.
yellow sinkers, BIG chum pots of chum we made ourselves. ( was a fun winter project BUSHELS of clams)
now even hearing the huge clam beds surrounding sandy hook are not producing 1/10th of the clams they used to .
Things are changing fast in the wrong direction

[Reel Class]

The saddest part about this post Gerry is that 15 years ago when I started chartering, till about 2010, I would be already prepping the boat to be in the water next week for the start of our flounder season. The calls were there, the anglers were there, and the fish were (and still are!!) there in the Manasquan River and Barnegat Bay. Makes me sad, but also makes me grateful that we were able to cash in for so many years with this great fishery. We caught tons of fish, threw back tons of fish, and of course kept our share for the table. The 10 fish limit was great as we were able to take what we wanted - where the bag limit is now makes targeting them inshore a complete waste of time for charter and party boats.

What upsets me more though is the lack of fish up north in the Shrewsbury/Navesink and the raritan bay. That really is disheartening.

Here's some pics, from between roughly 2002 and 2010. Back then I didn't take nearly as many pics as I do now so these are just from roughly 4 or 5 trips - all on the seaswirl!

[Gerry Zagorski]

Originally Posted by Ice Cream Bill

Gerry,

Great seeing you, Joey da Fish and Dales529 at the RFA booth in Edison!

Irish Jigger: I am booked for Sunday July 8th on that same boat in Quincy. Capt is holding Sat pm trip if I want as well. May and June trips are all booked.

He is not a sponsor on this site, but I need some NJ Fishing guys to join me—feel free to PM me if interested. Limit is 8 flounder per angler!

Bill

Good seeing you too Bill.