While some anglers turn their noses up at the spring bluefish run, some of us look forward to spring bluefish as a great opportunities for light tackle fishing in the back bays and around some of the jetties. As the blackfish (tog) season closes temporarily and some boats are reporting decent catches of striped bass from Delaware Bay (not to mention from some of the beaches), the spring bluefish run in the back bays has come at just the right time.
This past week bluefish in the 1-4 pound range have invaded the back bays and, in some cases, the beach front jetties and surf. From the back bays of Stone Harbor and Hereford Inlet to Cape May Harbor, small schools of bluefish have been turning up in the usual places. Look for them along the sodbanks, inlets, flats, and at creek mouths. This past week, fishing the mouth of a tidal creek on an outgoing tide, several bluefish (and one weakfish) tried to swallow our white bucktails, to which we added a 3-5″ strip of squid. Some fish hit on faster retrieves, while others seemed to prefer a very slow, deep retrieve. On very light spinning rods, with 12 pound line, a 3 pound bluefish provides a great fight.
The Tiderunner and other charter boats report that blues, with some small bass, have been sucking in flies along the sodbanks and Cape May jetties for the past week. It seems they show up anywhere, so moving around to find the fish will pay off.
Rumors of larger bluefish in the 6+ pound range abound, although they are not the norm. One reason more aren’t being caught is likely because many anglers report being chopped off. Although with small blues, a 30-50 pound mono or fluoro leader is sufficient, larger blues simply bite through these lines. Many anglers use a steel or wire leader, which insures that larger fish can’t bite them off. Jpwever. you may get fewer hits with a wire leader. So it’s a balancing act.
In addition to being fun to catch on light tackle, spring bluefish are great eating. This is probably because they have been migrating, rather than pigging out on baitfish all summer, so they don’t have lots of fat. I’m convinced that these fish have a more delicate taste than fall run blues that tend to be fatter and larger.
This spring run of “tailor blues” (an older angler’s term for 1-3 pound bluefish), is, unfortunately, short-lived. With the exception of the 1 pound fish and snappers, tailor blues generally become scarce by June. The smaller fish stay the entire summer, teasing us as we try for bass, flounder, and weakies. So, this is the time to get out and have some fun with light spinning and fly fishing tackle.
Two weeks ago we reported that it was looking bad for the blackfish/tautog season for 2008. However, the moratorium has been averted by last minute changes in fishing regs for this year by the New Jersey Marine Fisheries Council. However, we won’t be able to catch as many blackfish this year as in the past.
The blackfish regs for 2008, so far, are as follows:
4 fish daily (larger than 14 inches) from now until April 30
Season Closed from May 1 through June 15
It appears that fewer fish will be allowed during the fall season, but check back on this website for updates to these regulations.
While most charter and party boats have been in drydock or inactive for much of the winter, the Starlight Fleet’s Atlantic Star, sailing out of Wildwood Crest, has been making up to three offshore trips per week for big seabass and other denizens of offshore waters. These 18 hour trips are not for the feint of heart. They leave the dock at 2:00 AM and you must make a reservation. The fishing grounds are 50-60 miles offshore, so if you decide to try your luck, dress comfortably and make sure you have good recipes for seabass.
Anglers aboard the Starlight have been rewarded with large seabass, with some limits being caught (25 fish 12″ or greater in size). If you did not hear, last year the Starlight returned from one of their 18 hour marathon offshore trips with a women’s world record seabass on 8 pound test line. Many of the bass this winter are going 6 and 7 pounds. There is no finer seabass fishing than on these trips. A highlight of a recent trip was a 25 pound tilefish! There have also been smaller numbers of pollock, cod, and other interesting fish caught.
With spring coming, the Starlight Fleet (http://www.capemaytimes.com/fishing/starlight.htm) will be fishing for sea bass closer to shore and going out more often. For more info on this fishing and other spring fishing in and around Cape May, check out our other fishing pages for more info (http://www.capemaytimes.com/fishing/default.htm).
The spring striped bass season is about to really kick into gear. Reports of bass working schools of herring and other baitfish have been coming in and it won’t be long before many are being caught. We will update you next week as to how the charter boats are doing.
Take note, there are new tog and fluke regs for 2008.
Blackfish. As of this date, there will be no blackfish (tautog) season in New Jersey in 2008. The season will close on April 1, 2004! That’s right, the feds are closing the season down. Why? The reason is simple. The New Jersey Marine Fisheries Council voted to not reduce the harvest of blackfish for 2008, despite a federal mandate for reductions. In other words, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC), the group that decides the levels of harvests has concluded that blackfish are being overharvested and that reductions were needed. When the New Jersey Marine Fisheries Council voted to not reduce the harvest, a moratorium was imposed.
Does this mean you can’t fish for blackfish in New Jersey after April 1? The answer may not be no, but check with your lawyer before you keep any fish??? Who’s going to enforce the moratorium? Will the NJ DEP agents (wildlife police) do that job for the feds or will the federal authorities have to do that? It is confusing at this point. With that in mind, when was the last time you ran into a conservation officer (federal or state) while you were fishing? In other words, there may be some breaking of the moratorium, although I don’t recommend doing that. I identify these issues not to encourage people to illegally take fish, but to show that there are some real problems with harvest limits and law enforcement in New Jersey. Someday New Jersey anglers will wake up and figure out how to get better enforcement, which will lead to better harvest laws.
Whether or not the season will remain open this year is dependent on the New Jersey Marine Fisheries Council voting quickly to impose new harvest regs that are in line with what is acceptable with the feds. Let’s hope they do something in time for spring fishing or the moratorium will kill that! It’s likely that the Marine Fisheries Council will vote on new regs, but whatever they decide don’t look forward to the same regs as last year. They certainly will make it more difficult to bring home a few fish.
Why are blackfish declining in numbers? There are two answers to this, although quite simply, they have been overharvested for years. Blackfish mature very slowly, so it takes several years for them to reach sexual maturity and spawning age. For years, we simply kept fish that had not grown old enough to reproduce. In addition, there has been a consistent and large illegal harvest for many years. Rogue anglers simply take small fish and take more fish than the limit!
Flounder. On the summer flounder (fluke) front, there will be new regs in place this year. The season this year will run from May 24 to September 7, so it will be a short one. While the 8 fish limit still applies, fish have to be 18 inches, so you will need to take larger fish this year.
Based on last year’s good fishing reports for flounder, the larger size limit this year is difficult to understand. Many decent fish were caught last year and it seemed that fishing was better in 2008 as opposed to previous years. So, the catches by South Jersey anglers do not seem to be consistent with the larger size limit. Nevertheless, look forward to returning many fish to the water and taking fewer fish home.
Finally, because you will undoubtedly have to throw more fish back this year, don’t take your frustration out on the fish. Treat them gently while unhooking them and place them gently back in the water. Remember, if you injure them, they won’t be keepers next year!
With water temperatures over 60 degrees and many of us still walking around in shorts only a few weeks ago, the beginning of the migratory striped bass season seemed like a myth. Rumors of bass massing to the north of us has driven some of us nearly mad. However, during the past week, water temperatures plummeted into the high 50s and even lower. This means the migratory striped bass season has kicked off in earnest and the big schools of bass from the north have moved within striking distance.
While fishing for stripers on the Coast Guard jetty on Nov 9, I struck out, but a few short bass were caught by anglers near the tip of the jetty. Fishing with plastic and jig-heads, one angler managed about 5 fish, while another caught a 23″ fish on on swimming plug. Walking back in the dark, I nearly tripped over a 31 inch bass caught by an angler named Jack (see picture above). That was his first of the evening on a rising tide. He was drowning clams in the surf. Bass are now showing up all along the beaches from Wildwood to Cape May Point, not to mention the back bays and channels.
Many larger bass are now being taken up the Delaware Bay and in the past couple of days there have been more fish in the rips off Cape May Point. The traditional drifting with bucktails, bunker, clam, and, of course, eels has begun to produce. Captain Jeremy of The Stalker and other captains working the Bay reported decent catches (http://www.capemaytimes.com/fishing/charter.htm). Captain Jeremy reported fish to 23 pounds taken on spot.
Closer inshore, Capt. Ray of the Tiderunner and Capt. Ken of the Irish Fly actually went out together this past week and scored 22 short bass, to about 26″ … all on flies. Both have been starting to report larger counts of bass, although Capt. Ray did note that some of the recent bass have had sea lice, indicating that the fish were not the usual characters that inhabit the back bays of Wildwood, Cape May and Stone Harbor. Note that the fish have been fatter too, as is the case with the short striper shown. This influx of fish arrived as water temperatures dipped. They have also been getting somewhat larger blues (2-4 pounds), although their flies aren’t too happy about being chewed on.
If you haven’t reserved your fall striper charters now’s the time to do so. In recent years the fishing has been good right through December, but you can’t count on it. Reserve now!
Although the blackfish limit is still at only 1 fish per person, tog anglers have been scoring on some decent fish. I observed some tog anglers doing battle with some nice fish along with the rockpiles that seemed to claim more hooks and sinkers than fish caught. I’ve also heard reports of fish at the bridges and at other jetties around Cape May. At least one of the tog landed at the Coast Guard jetty was more than 7 pounds. As of November 15, the limit on tog goes up to 8 per person per day, with a minimum size of 14″. Although it may be tough, try to throw back the big females as they are the breeders that keep the population stable. Without these females, which take several years to become sexually mature, we won’t have tog to catch. The females are blotchy or mottled in color, not all black or dark gray like the males. They also don’t have the hump-like back of the head like males.
The Starlight Fleet boats are now doing daily trips for stripers at 8 am and weekend 18-hour wreck fishing trips. The latter are reservations only (http://www.capemaytimes.com/fishing/fishing-wildwood.htm).