Bottom fishing tuesday 7/2

[bulletbob]

Despite the dire forecast may son and I made the long drive down to Point...
I thought it was going to be a horrid day when the pretty hispanic girl a few feet away turned green and started puking on the cabin floor before we got even halfway out to the fishing area.. Once on anchor however, it was really not bad, and conditions were better than I anticipated.. btw,The drive through the mountains in Pa around 4 am was horrible with lightening and driving sideways rain for an hour. Couldn't see 10 feet.Didn't slow the 18 wheelers down at all.. They threaded in and out of the slowed down cars at 70 mph...

Fishing for sea bass was pretty slow and the captain didn't spend much time with them, knowing they wouldn't cooperate with the south winds and swell that has been steady for days[weeks?} Some guys only got one, some none.. High hook got 5 I think, mostly bare keepers.
I got 3 nice ones including a big humpback that was a pool contender.. My son only got a few shorts... It was to be a ling day, I knew that early on... Ling fishing was pretty good , not spectacular.. My son and I got 16 -mixed sizes, mostly mediums, with 2 or 3 pretty nice ones.. No little ones for us today.. We did better than a few folks, but worse than several.. I am very observant, and noticed the guys a foot right of me, and a foot to the left were bailing the ling pretty good as we fished deeper drops as the the day wore on.. No mystical technique really.. In the shallow water I matched them fish for fish, but started to find we kept bringing up clean hooks. Both those guys were using braid, and I think they could feel the fish better.. I am certain braid makes a big difference when bottom fishing in deep water, but I don't like handling the stuff, and we kept hooking braid lines that guys had to cut when snagged because they couldn't break it... I need to find a good stiff, very low stretch mono of some kind.. Out the two guys near me that caught more fish than we did, one used Gulp along with his clam globs, and one didn't.. Not sure if the Gulp was the key, but he did catch more than most.. However other guys using Gulp caught less then most.. It is a weird looking mess. A big glowing green twister with a glob of clam snot the size of a tennis ball... Looks like nothing a Ling has ever eaten before, but they didn't seem to mind.. We used to catch them by the hundreds on a little piece of mackerel, or any other fish you had.. Ah well, times change...

So we brought home 16 Ling, and 3 nice C bass, which isn't a great tally, but it wasn't a "lock and load" day. You fished pretty hard to bring home fish ..
I brought Shop Rite Squid and whole smelts, but it was a waste of money, the fish wouldn't touch them.. I caught one small Ling on the squid/ smelt..
Other guys used bergall strips for ling and did ok.. I couldn't get a sniff with them, Probably because the guys using Bergall had Gulp on as well... All in all, we have had better days, but with the sea conditions, I can't complain. We brought home some nice fish, I had the biggest sea bass on the boat, and realize that I really need to get this cheap ultra stretchy $1.99 line off these reels, and find something that will allow for better hook sets, and better sensitivity in deep water...
Last week I fished the Navesink in a rental skiff, first fish of the day was a nice 19' keeper, and several throwbacks that were 16-17, So my first trips down to NJ this year have been OK.. Not great, but we'll get there when I get my tackle straightened out... The crew got an anchor snagged and broke the anchor line , something I have never seen before.. They had a spare, but I'll bet an anchor that can hold a packed head boat in strong wind costs a lot of money... Can't wait to get back to the NJ shore, wish I still lived there .... bob