OK, so this is the second half, report 2 of 2 of the weekend's fluking adventures.
Today I met up with Charlie, Craig, and Doug to do some fluking on Charlie's boat. After a 3 hour nap from fishing all day yesterday, I awoke on Tom's boat and got cleaned up and headed off to meet up at the ramp Charlie launches at for a 5:00AM departure. I was running a little late again, mainly due to mistiming the drive from Tom's marina to Charlie's ramp...being late for back to back fishing trips sucks...I hate being late!!! Sorry guys! Anyway, we took the 45 minute to an hour ride out through the rivers, under the bridges, and out to the Hook...ironically, I drove from the Highlands out to Edison, to take a boat ride back to the Highlands again...haha!
So, it's been awhile since I fished with Doug and Craig, I was looking forward to this trip, and we were all ready for a slammer day! We immediately headed to the area where Tom, Lou, and I beat on the keepers yesterday and the fishing started off pretty good as we boxed 7 keepers in the first hour and a half or so. Then the wind died down and so did our drift. We tried a few different spots and eventually hit a good patch where Craig landed a nice 5.5-6.0# fish and we started getting into some more keepers, working our way up to about 15 or so before things died down completely.
We decide to move down the beach some and hit a few rough spots to see if we can pick up a few more keepers, but none of the spots were panning out. Some shorts here and there, but nothing but sea robins for the most part. We headed all the way down to the Highlands to see the Captain Cal II out of Belmar had run all the way up there. Boats were stacked around the Cal, we figured the bite was hot over there...so we joined the crowd only to find nothing was happening at all beyond sporadic shorts...but the breeze picked up, so we headed back up to where Craig landed that big fish and where we caught a bunch of other keepers.
Back on the spot, we found few fish, so we moved around a bit until we hit one drift that was pretty good, landing probably 8 keepers between us in about 10-15 minutes...including two nice fish around 4# or so. Everyone was in on the action, with me tailing behind keeping the sea robins and skates on my hook and off everyone else's! You're welcome guys! Haha. We promptly called the Daly Double crew over to join in on the drift as it was the best we've seen all day, but oddly the next few drifts were much slower despite rolling over the exact same marked points on the same drift line. Weird how the keepers are there one drift and gone the next...perhaps they were just moving through and we happened to hit them at the right time. We did manage to pick up a few more keepers on the subsequent drifts and Craig, a BIG fish magnet, lost a few big hookups before we had to end the day and head in.
Overall, it seemed like a slow day...we'd pick at fish, then hit a dead spell, then pick at some more keepers, then another long dead spell, then pick again. No constant action, just a random pick but steadily filled the livewells with fish. Our final tally for the four guys was 26 keepers, calling it quits around 3:30PM or so.
We had a ROUGH ride home with a lot of chop. Doug and I sat up front with Charlie and Craig in back to distribute the weight on the boat, needless to say Doug and I got the crap kicked out of us. I can't even describe the beating we took and it might have been the most abusive ride either of us has taken...thanks Charlie for throttling it at 35 knots the whole way! Haha Doug and I were laughing so hard because it was so ridiculous and so painful...thankfully we were sitting on a padded cooler bench and backrest...although I did crack my head on the aluminum bars behind me about three times...Doug was complaining about a ruptured spleen and broken ribs! The only analogy I could think of was imagine going to Great Adventure on a mixture of the Scream Machine and Free Fall...except when Free Fall hit the Bottom...there was no curve to absorb the dead fall...instead...it was your arse and spinal column! FUN!!! I'm still laughing at the whole trip in and feeling it too!
We got back, got the boat trailered and back to his place where we filleted the fish and cleaned up the gear!
Again, we took our time with the filleting as I had bought Charlie and Craig the Dexter Russel 9" fillet knives and showed them how I filleted as well, just as I did with Tom yesterday. Doug joined in on the action and used a spare knife of mine as he left his at home. All of them liked the tail style filleting approach and picked it up extremely quickly. Like I said, filleting fluke seemed intimidating to people as it's always toted as a "hard" fish to fillet, but once you have the right tools and someone to show you, it's easy as pie! Now they can help out when we fish together and be able to handle it on their own with some nice, clean fillets to show for it when they're not! Good stuff!
OK, here's some pics from the day...
Heading out with Craig and Charlie at the helm
Doug is a very masculine pose...I'm sure he'll try to blame it on the smell of the landfill we passed by or something! Haha
A little scenery...
A little more...
And another...part of "Gotham City"
The sun getting ready to peak through...
Clouds suppressing it a bit...
The Parkway bridge coming up...
The boys cruising...holding on...
Under the bridge...
Doug having a good time already...
Some more scenery...
Doug already tapping into some food...like I should talk!
Craig and Charlie getting it on...not sure why Craig was on his knees here...but Charlie does have a big smile on his face. I'm sure Craig will fabricate some kind of creative story like he was trying to light a cigarette and shield himself from the wind!
Charlie finally getting us to the promise land!
Doug, showing off a monster catch! Man, that might be a foot and a half wingspan on that sucker! Good size!
Craig, The BIG Fish Magnet
Doug with the Darwin of the Day Award...note the hook in his mouth!
I'd like to see him try that on our ride back that day!
Doug busting out in Joe Cool mode...rare form!
Back at the ramp...we have Charlie, aka The Clam Shell Hunter, aka The Trailer Squirrel
Cooler full-o-fish!
Table full-o-fish!
Craig, with his two big fish of the day!
Me, holding one of Craig's fish since Doug nicely buried my 4#er in the bottom of the cooler of fish...thanks buddy!
Non-authentic catch pic...Booooo!!!
Doug and Charlie filleting it up!
Final fillet results...bags of fillets...nice boys, real nice!
Well, once again...a great day on the water. I wasn't carrying my weight today only bringing 4 or 5 keepers in the boat. Doug, Charlie, and Craig were at or near their limits...and we lost count of how many 16.99-17.05" fish we threw back. If we had to look twice, we threw them back in...and I'd guess there were at least 10-15 like that...so we could have easily had our limit with the liners we released. I held down the fort taking the crown for most sea robins, skates, and dogfish on the trip! We had a great time out there, as we always do. Fishing was good but not the slammer day of action we had hoped for...although we did manage a near limit of keepers and well over with the ones we threw back...so all in all, not a bad day.
That's all folks, until next time...I hear a Saturday trip is already in the works...and we have the NJH Fluke-a-thon on Sunday! Bring it on boys!!! Let's go!!!
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