First shot at micro fishing…..

[Duffman]

Don’t know why but just obsessed with this after watching YouTube vids.

Goal is to land a spearing on a hook. Again, I know it sounds crazy.

Broke out and old school trout rod. 2lb test and some salmon egg hooks.

No spearing but the best micro fluke I could find. Little bastards put up a fight I did not expect.

I guess if I can’t fluke for real I’ll resort to this!!! But it was fun!!!

[Broad Bill]

Very cool. Holding the future of the stock in your hands. Looks like last year's recruitment class.

[jbigtime]

I haven’t seen one that small in years! Back in the day we’d see lots of small fluke like that in shark river. Seems that once the cormorant population quadrupled the small fluke got thinned out proportionally.

[Broad Bill]

Same with winter flounder. Cormorants gorged themselves on flounder. Bottom used to be paved with them in Shark River, hasn't been for decades. What should be thinned out is the cormorant population.

[jbigtime]

Just put a bag limit on them and they’ll disappear quick LOL….

[hammer4reel]

Originally Posted by Broad Bill

Same with winter flounder. Cormorants gorged themselves on flounder. Bottom used to be paved with them in Shark River, hasn't been for decades. What should be thinned out is the cormorant population.

Shark river used to be a great breeding ground for flounder .
It’s not the cormorant’s that ruined that fishery there .
It’s the millions of pounds of dust piped in there from every parking lots through the sewer systems .
95% of the river is full of that silt and it gets worse every year .
If they were to actually dredge the back 75% of the river one time so it could self cleanse itself , there would be another 100 years worth of fishing there

[Gerry Zagorski]

No measurements needed 😂

[Poncho]

I haven't seen a salmon egg hook in years. I remember them being gold and tiny. This hook looks pretty big.

[Broad Bill]

Originally Posted by hammer4reel

Shark river used to be a great breeding ground for flounder .
It’s not the cormorant’s that ruined that fishery there

I agree with you the sediment that's built up has destroyed the river and back bay. But the last time I fished there maybe 15 years ago for flounder, I watched three cormorants engulf honestly between 30-40 flounder within an hour. They've invaded the rivers and back bays and do a number on anything they can swallow. That coupled with what commercials did to the winter flounder stock dragging offshore in the summer and that marked the end of another great fishery