Your Take On The 2017 Fluke Season

[fish4fun]

okay...I will be the first to admit I'm not the best at it but I do have many years doing it. I used everything made under the sun. Red gulp, pink gulp, white gulp, chartreuse gulp, nuclear chicken, grubs, mullets 4"", 6", If Gulp made it I tried it. Gulp with spearing, Gulp with squid, live killies, dead killies, fluke belly, green buck tail, white buck tail, even a piece of foreskin I got from my local Rabbi (just kidding on that one). Fished one day every week for the entire fluke season. And what was my reward.....eight keepers for the entire season. Guess what? I'm ready to do it again in 2018.

[june181901]

Maybe got out ten times this year with a grand total of one keeper. That one came yesterday about 30 minutes before we had to be back.
I too shall try again next season as it beats golf.

[hartattack]

Very poor season for me If it wasn't for Massachusetts fluking my freezer would be empty. WE just never got the body of Fluke in NJ that we had in prior years. MY friends on Long Island did well - NJ was lacking.

[hammer4reel]

Had a great season .
Was alot of quality fish around .just had to find areas holding bait.
Average fish this year were between 20-22"
Most trips we were limited out by 10 and CR the rest of the day.

Out of 16 trips we had over a boat limit ,(ORL) on 13 of them .
We also had 1 skunk trip only catching shorts

IMO the reason we had a good year was the draggers were shut down in july and August allowing alot more fish to be caught be Recs

[Ice Cream Bill]

Capt Dan,

It must have been the Penn rods and reels.😜

[porgylber]

I think that it was a tale of 2 fisheries this season. Poor fishing (by and large) in the rivers and bays. Decent fishing most days on the ocean. I managed to get out 6 or 7 times. Generally 2 or 3 keepers were netted on the ocean per trip. In the river, no keepers. Just a bunch of shorts.

[Ttmako]

July and August were great off Manasquan.
Limits and decent average size.
I also noticed the direct relationship between the commercial shutdown and the fishing picking up.
Not sure if its coincidence, but I certainly noticed it.

[bunker dunker]

its like Dan said,"find the bait find the fish.the reason why they do so well up north is the bait.

[Capt. Debbie]

For a million excuses and reasons, the end result is the worst fluke season on my life in NJ. Can not think of any worse than this year. And there is no close second place either.

[bender]

excellent shallow fishing early, excellent deep water fishing late. spotty/picky fishing through the majority.
average as a whole, with a large percentage of the keepers over 20"