Matthew Mateyak's Blog: 07/06/2007

Well, it's story time again. Here is the latest trip report...the first of two from this weekend.

This trip features the Daly Double crew cruising the Raritan Bay and Sandy Hook yet again for some fluking action!
Tom, Lou, and myself are on board this time for another insane marathon trip!

I'll tell you what, when Tom says we're going fishing...he means we're going fishing! The morning started at 5:00AM...well for some of us, I was a little late today due to a little traffic caused by an accident on the NJ Turnpike...Tom took the opportunity to rib me hard given my nonstop torture of him for not showing up at IHOP before a fishing trip a few weeks back...a result of a long night of karaoke and alcohol at a local block party. Of course, I was actually awake by the time we were supposed to meet up...Tom on the other hand...hahaha!

OK, so we meet up at Julian's B&T to pick up a some essentials for the day, Tom and Lou are on the ball and get everything we need before I arrive so we can run right to the boat. We skip IHOP today because we want to be on the water by 6:00AM. We were hoping to locate some snappers around the docks, but no such luck...just some small spearing but nothing worth netting...so we ran off to fish almost immediately after getting the gear on the boat.

First stop, we head out to the southeastern side of Ambrose but not much happening there at all beyond some big rollers and Lou losing the previous evening's meal over the side! Did I mention Lou slept about 40 minutes the night before? Is that considered sleeping really? Haha poor Lou!

Anyway, we spent an hour or so on a few different drifts through Ambrose, but only a couple shorts to show for it. Next stop we moved in to the Sandy Hook East area and hit a few drifts over some lumps but again it's a little slow, shorts again with a couple keepers mixed in...I think we picked up about 3 or 4 out there but then the action died off. We move around a bit and locate a nice patch of keepers right around the time Lou decided to take a nap. A few drifts and suddenly Tom and I had about a dozen keepers in the box....then Lou wakes up, grabs a rod...and all we are catching are sea robins and dogfish! WTH!!! We immediately order Lou back into the cabin to sleep some more so we can get back into the fluke. Lou refuses. We catch more sea robins, but then the fluke come back and the action is fierce with shorts and keepers mixed in. We box a few more keepers, including a nice fish around 5.5# or so, for the next couple hours and are on our way to a 3 man limit. We figure with this action and pace, we should be limited on fluke and fishing for sea bass by 2:00PM or so. Well, the action died pretty quickly, as we had around 18 keepers in the box. We fish the same area, picking at fish until around 2:30PM when Tom decides to make a move and head out to the Shrewsbury Rocks for some bigger fish.

Well, in a few short words...the Shrewsbury Rocks are pure hell when it comes to losing gear. I haven't fished them much, but they lived up to their reputation by stealing a warehouse full of tackle from us. I lost count, but I'd imagine we lost somewhere in the vicinity of 20+ Spros, 8+ bank sinkers, 10+ hooks, and a spool or two of fluoro in a matter of 3 hours...losing those Spros really hurts! As frustrating as the fishing is there, we know it holds some big fish...and we know you are going to lose some gear fishing them, that's the price to play there! Unfortunately, we didn't see anything really big, just a couple 4# fish or so and a few more keepers...we left the rocks around 5:30PM with 23 keepers in the box and headed back in to fish a few quick drifts on the way back to the marina.

We hit up the previous keeper heavy spot with not much happening but sea robins and some shorties. We headed up the coast a little bit more, with fast action but again all shorts...noting remotely close to that last keeper. We started recollecting the 17" liners we threw back given the action and knowing I had to get up for a 5:00AM departure the next day, I was praying for a final keeper to seal the deal! Haha. We moved in one more time back to the tip of the Hook around the area where I caught a final keeper last week...and sure enough, as soon as we dropped we were on the fish. I had 2 barely shorts and the final keeper in about 5 minutes, we finished the drift off and headed back in with a 3 man limit in the cooler!

It's 7:30PM when we hit the marina, get the boat docked, and solicit the help of a random patron at the marina to snap a few pics of us with our fish. Then we're off to the Tiki Bar for some food and drink. Lou has to skip out, he has a hot date over at Jake-a-bobs and is drooling at the bit to get out, so we let him off the hook for cleaning fish or the boat! He was a trooper throughout the day given his earlier battle with sea sickness and toughing it out to fill the cooler before heading back in. Tom and I don't neglect the Tiki Bar for long, as we relax a bit and hit up some shrimp cocktail, burgers, and a few drinks before heading over to the fillet table.

Tom and I took our time filleting the fluke, as I recently purchased Tom, Charlie, and Craig Dexter Russell 9" fillet knives (mate standard) and spent some time teaching them to fillet fluke the way I learned to, tail side first. It's a little slower, more cuts, but I think it results in a cleaner fillet than splitting down the middle and it's easy to do. Tom picked it up quickly and has it down pat now, it just seems a little daunting to try it the first few times, but once you get the feel, it's like riding a bike and very easy to do. So we finished up the filleting, gave a few to one of the bartenders, and split the rest up in 3 bags for Tom, Lou, and myself.

It's about 11:00PM now by the time we get something to eat, the boat cleaned, the gear rinsed, and the fish filleted. Did I mention I have to get up about 3:30AM for tomorrow's trip with Charlie, Craig, and Doug? Hah! Well, Tom offers the boat's sleeping quarters to me and a hot shower in the morning at the marina, and I'm thankful for his offer because I am exhausted and it saves me driving time so I can sleep a little more! I crash hard as Tom heads home, he too is heading out tomorrow with his uncle, his son Hunter, and our friend Tom (aka lefteye) for some fluking fun.

So that's the trip report, another awesome day on the water with Tom and Lou for a standard Daly Double 14 hour fluking marathon. For Lou, it was literally fluking until you puke...and then some!

Here's a few pics from the trip...and trust me there are some good ones!

Tom and Lou...patiently waiting for me to arrive.
Lou chowing down on a cookie, little does he realize he'll be spilling those cookies in a few short hours! Haha

The boys, fishing early...

Sun peaking through the clouds...

Carinval coming through...

Cruising on the water...

I didn't realize Pocahontas was on board! Oh wait, that's Lou, sorry!

Maybe they're good luck shoes?
Rare photo of Lou with a fish...and yeah, he did catch it!
Haha, he does catch fish when he's not sleeping, on the cell phone, tangled up, or hurling over the side...so...OK, there isn't much time left to catch fish then is there?

Lou, standard tangled mess...he claims looking at things up close were making him queasy
Considering he is tangled every other cast, I'm surprised he wasn't puking all day long...although he did sleep for most of it! :P