Reel Class Saturday 10/19 - Bluefish to 22#!!

[Reel Class]

Today we had Andy M's charter on for a jigging trip. Ran up north to where the bite has been and the gigantor, 5XL size bluefish didn't disappoint - as soon as I cut the engines back we had fish on and we had good action the first 2 hours of the day with bluefish up to 21#. At times we had every rod hooked up, and the fish were stacked from top to bottom. These fish were brutes, it reminded me of my youth when we used to catch these jumbo's out at the squan ridge and the Klondike - these bluefish aren't long, they are THICK and are sort of shaped like school bluefins. Needless to say, the action early on was tremendous.

Once the boat traffic got to the point where boats were literally everywhere, the bite slowed. We bounced around, got a few here and there, but never got that insane bite going. We ran south, then way north and still caught the big blues, but the bass, for us, were nowhere to be found.

We tried like hell to get these guys a bass but it wasn't our day - so, on the way home, we changed gears, and had the guys jig up some weakfish along the beach and they were able to boat at least 2 dozen up to maybe 14". Murph also jigged up an extremely lucky 19" fluke that survived till we find him next season

For the day the crew boated countless bluefish in the 15-22# range, and I counted 6 bluefish OVER 20# that were weighed on a certified scale - I was lucky enough to get the biggest of the day, 22#, which is BY FAR my best ever bluefish (closest was a 17.5# taken in 1990 on the Norma-K 2!). 4 of the 5 crew members got their best bluefish ever, topped by Tommy's 21#er but Andy and Murph both got a couple right at 20# also. We wound up keeping 8, and releasing the rest to fight another day (we utilized that tuna door today, finally!)

Great day with a great group of guys, a little disappointed we couldn't get the guys a bass, but they were more than happy with the results!

[Skolmann]

Nice catch as always. Good seeing you out there.

Wish we were able to get out earlier as we caught the last 2 hours of the better bite and as you said a pick the rest of the day.

I also took my PB bluefish at just under #21 but I was also to cull out a #19.8 pool winning bass (3 others, all keepers were also caught).

At one point we were off by ourselves and had the fish come up getting the water into a boiling forth. Just as we were gliding in a Grady White comes barreling on them full bore putting them down. amazing that there are still a large number of idiots out there that do this crap..

Hope to be out on the Reel Class in the coming weeks.