The weather is cooling down and the fishing is heating up.
Trolling has been producing a nice grade of resident rockfish in the 22-26 inch class. The bite is a little unpredictable day-to-day but it’s only gonna’ get better! Hopefully, the larger migratory rockfish will show up any day now. The wind cost me a trip this week, but when I did get out, I caught some quality fish. I think the bite is going to bust loose very soon!
I only had one trip on the books this week and Mother Nature prevented it with 35kt winds!
The word on the dock is that the striper-bite has been tough. Some boats are trolling, others are chumming. There are still a few bluefish around but they’re on the way out. As these cooler temperatures chill the water, the fishing should turn on in a big way!
Fishing was a little up and down this week, but we managed to overcome adversity and snatch victory from the jaws of defeat! We pulled out full rockfish limits on all four trips this week although some days were tougher than others and we had to pull out all the tricks. All of our customers were great, and that combined with full-fish boxes makes for a great week! Here’s a pic from a nice family outing trip on Saturday. (One lady didn’t want to have her photo posted so the others held her fish—we never exceed our legal limit!)
Had my best customers out last night—the boys from BGC and J.M. Mullen Electrical. Great group of guys and they’re always a riot. We set up and started fishing with some bleak conditions. Wind was fighting tide and the lines weren’t behaving. The six other boats left shortly after we got there because no one was catching. We didin’t have a bite for 30 minutes or so…..then it was Game-On! We got the rockfish riled up under the boat and caught a full limit plus the boat-fish in under 2 hours!
The Bay has cleaned up nicely and most of the debris is gone. Fishing has been very hit or miss lately. The weekend was a mob-scene with way too many clueless boats running through chumslicks and spooking fish. On Saturday, we decided to troll for breaking bluefish and hooked about 35, and kept 19 for eating. On Sunday, we toughed it out on the chumming grounds with the crowds. The rockfishing was very tough but we never stopped working and eventually caught our limit with 2 minutes of fishing-time left. My mate, Capt. Kenny made an awesome effort and my customers were fantastic—Thanks guys! Fish hard and never give up! Here are the boys with their rock-limit….
I was out of town for a few days shooting ducks, but apparently the fishing has been both good and bad depending on the day and the tide. Despite the hit or miss nature of the bite, plenty of rockfish were caught this week chumming, trolling and jigging. Breaking fish are becoming more common as well but many of the fish are undersized. Great fall fishing is about to break loose any day now!