Well Chris and I met up dark and early at my place around 3:30AM and headed up to the Atlantic Highlands to hit up a rental for a day of fluking the river!
After grabbing some fine breakfast and lunch cuisine at 7-11, along with a cooler-full-o-ice, we departed my place and arrived at the marina right around 5:00AM. I took care of the paperwork while Chris loaded the boat...and off we went.
We were catching the last bit of outgoing and opted to hit the same areas we did 2 weeks earlier when we limited. On our ride out, we saw the bulkheads were wet (from the previous high tide) VERY high...possibly the highest I've ever seen there. Not knowing what the moon was, we figured it was a full moon tide...but apparently it wasn't! Maybe all the rain from last week? Either way later in the day...when high tide came in...it had to rise a good 6-8 feet or more.
Alright on to the day...
Here's Chris, excited for the day!
We head on out and catch a nice sunrise a short while later...
There was a good breeze coming out of the WNW for most of the day, giving us wind against tide for the first part of the morning. The bite was pretty slow, with only a few shorts coming up out of a spot where we pulled like 8 keepers from two weeks earlier...very suprising.
We moved off to where Chris nailed two keepers at the end of the day last time, and I was able to get our first keeper of the day near there, a few others shorts...and this interesting fish!
At first glance I thought it was a monkfish, but the teeth seem rounded not sharp like a monkfish normally is.
After I got home, I did a little research and this appears to be an oyster toadfish (Opsanus tau).
I enjoyed this tidbit of info I found too..
"While it is edible, the oyster toadfish is rarely eaten because of its grotesque appearance."
Yeah we threw it back for exactly that reason...LOL
So after that adventure, we opted to take a trek to another spot we picked a few last time out, and that's when Chris opened the clinic for the day. We didn't bring in a ton of fish at the spot, but it seemed like every fish I caught over there was a short while his were all keepers. In about 2 hours Chris secured his limit of 6, while I was only able to land 1 more over there...giving us 8 on the day thus far.
One of the classic moments of the day was when I was retying and we drifted up into the shallows...Chris hooks into a fish that starts ripping drag on him out and away from the boat. "Ohhhh man, it's a damn bluefish". Chris is all POed, not wanting to lose his bucktail to a yellow-eyed demon...when all of sudden the fish comes up as a nice 20"+ fluke! Seriously, this kid could do no wrong, he was a keeper catching animal! LOL Turns out we were probably in like 4-5 feet of water and the fish simply couldn't go DOWN, only OUT to escape...nice surprise! ;)
Anyway, the bite died out as did the tide, so we kicked around a few spots from earlier hoping some fish moved in but it was just plain slow! Nothing but shorts, and few at that, everywhere we went.
It was nearing the end of the day when the wind picked up, so we opted to go back to the spot where I caught the first keeper earlier in the day...second drift I hook up and 5 seconds later Chris hooks up with a real good one and goes into fish fighting panic mode! Haha I horse mine in, easy 19-20" keeper, skip the net, just fling him over the side and into the boat knowing Chris has a nice one on...so I put my rod down and grab the net, up comes a 5lb 12oz flattie! Great fish, especially for the river!
We drifted that same area like 30 times...and again only a handful of shorts to show for it! Couldn't believe it.
We were running out of time before having to return the rental, so we hopped around a bit more but couldn't locate our two final keepers and went in with 10.
Our final catch of the day...
Certainly not a bad catch for the day we had, a lot of rentals out there but we only heard of 3 other keepers coming in out of the river that day.
Compared to our trip 2 weeks ago, we probably had 1/3 as many fish but nearly as many keepers...so definitely a better ratio of shorts to keepers, but just not a lot of fish.
The fish that were there were inhaling baits, so they were hungry...which leads me to believe the fish just weren't there in numbers like they were two weeks earlier.
I'd have to think those super high tides played a role...not sure if fish moved out as a result of the rains or what.
Either way, a great day on the water with a bag full of fillets for both of us!
