Saturday afternoon I fished solo on the Misty Morn. Since I forgot my rain jacket, we of course had light intermittent rain most of the trip. Fortunately, a crew member had an extra top to lend me. Early on had wind against tide situation with a brisk east wind up against the end of the ebb tide. Started off in the lee of the wind, fishing tight to the Staten Island side of the Kill Van Kull. I started out using a 1 ounce white Spro tipped with a 4" chartreuse GULP swimming minnow and bait strip with a standout out hook 12"s above tipped with a 3" new penny GULP shrimp. Nothing on the first drift. Second drift I boated 3 fluke with 1 being a boxer. Third drift I added 3 more shorts. Out of the 6 fluke, 5 came on the bucktail.
Moved out into the bay during the slack. I added 3 more shorts and 2 sea robins to my total. These were all taken dragging bait as the drift was slightly too fast for the 1 ounce Spro. Keeper wise it was slow as only 5 keepers were put aboard but there was plenty of action on shorts. No one had more than 1 keeper and the pool winner was between 19-20"s.
This morning, Jason & I accompanied Capt. Allen and his brother in-law Anthony for some light tackle Manasquan River fluking. Action all day from Clark's east to the inlet. We bucktailed all day. By Clark's the best bait was a 3/8 ounce chartreuse jighead tipped with a GULP shrimp. East of the railroad bridge a 1 ounce bucktail tipped with a chartreuse GULP with a GULP shrimp on a standout hook 12"s above it the hot bait. In the deeper water the bucktail accounted for the majority of the fish and in the slower water the stand out hook with the shrimp was the ticket. Out of 80 fluke put aboard we were able to cull 6 keepers. Great light tackle action.
