Quote:
Originally Posted by bulletbob
When you write about the bite dying off, do you mean larger keeper size fish, or total numbers?... For years and years when I lived on the bay, and even after I moved up here and drove down to fish in NJ, there were always tons and tons of small fluke in the bay to the point of being ridiculous.. You could catch a hundred a day if you wanted all summer, but a 15 incher was a big one. I used to bounce old style hair jigs with a small strip of squid alongside a dead stick on the gunnel and the amount of fish was astounding, but even in those days, as summer progressed the fish seemed to get smaller. Also the 1 to 2 pound Blues were sometimes more abundant than Fluke and you had to watch your dead stick as many disappeared overboard, before you could even react... I imagine the Blues aren't there in those type of numbers these days in the Raritan/Sandy Hook complex.. Kind of a shame, as when we talked of going fishing back then [80's] we didn't say "we are going for fluke".. It was always- "We are going for fluke and blues".. You never caught one without catching a lot of the other .. As you went further into the Shrewsbury Navesink, fluke were always there all summer but numbers dwindled as summer progressed, and blues became less of a "problem" although they would still come charging through on certain days.. Sometimes without warning BIG blues would come charging into the rivers as well, and it was fun watching a kid with a Zebco hook a big Bluefish.. Not sure that happens anymore..
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Both. I fish a particular hole very close to my dock. From the start of May until first week June it is loaded with 18-22” fish. By middle of June when water temps creep up its shuts off like a light. If we get heavy rains it’ll turn off even sooner.
Raritan and SHB have changed drastically since Sandy. Pieces that used to hold fish no longer do and vice versa. Back in the 80’s 90’s and early 2000’s catching a smooth dog was not exactly rare but seldom saw them. This year I have yet to see a sea robin but have put close to, if not over 100 dogs this year on deck. Same with cow noses. Can’t remember them at all as a kid and this past weekend I saw thousands.
