[Gerry Zagorski]

Welcome to the site Wares.

The pots in the mud hole are as good as any place to start. If you look at a chart, the majority of pots will likely be along the steepest drop offs on the edge. These areas are easy to see on the chart because the depth contour lines will be closest together. See screen shot below.

Clean water does make a difference for trolling as mentioned above. It also allows you to pull up on pots, look down into the water to see if anyone is home.

What we usually do is troll around the pots to see if they come out to play and if we find a concentration of fish, we will stop in that general area and pitch baits on spinning tackle around the pots. You throw a handful of spearing right at the pot to hopefully get them going and if they are home it's game on. Some guys use live killies to do this as well and for pitch baits use a light bucktail.

Last year we trolled just north of the Shark River reef, rounded a pot and immediately got slammed by 2. I had a bunch of freshly netted Peanut Bunker on hand and while the other 2 were being fought, I winged a few hand fulls off the stern and pitched a hook bait in the slick and we hooked another. Fun stuff.

As was mentioned in an earlier post, it's a little early right now and it usually gets into full swing mid August.

Pick your days when there is a high pressure system in the area and seas are forecasted to be 3 feet or feet or less and you'll be fine. Keep in mind that due to summer heating on land the afternoon fan usually turns on around 2 or 3 out of the South or West which can make for a bumpy ride home.