Summer days drawing to an end so is flukin my friends.
Left port around 7:45 and made a last ditch effort to muster up some decent fluke with Bill Schultz and Bill Coogan before the nasty weather puts a cabash on things over the weekend.
Headed south along the Sandy Hook and the beaches in 20-30' of water to haul a bunch of shorts. S SE winds made for slow going to deeper and busted up bottom around the SH reef, Shrewsbury rocks and Rattlesnake. Managed 2 keeper c-bass and 3 fluke. One of respectable size fluke in the snake. 10 oz of weight on power pro did the trick with cleaned whole squid and Killie. Schultz took the helm to bump it in and out of gear to create a .6 knot drift in water that changed from 65 to 55 ft. That put the largest of the fish on the line for the day 25" 5 lb 12 oz. Felt heavier than that coming up but don't they all.
The day was not without some excitement. Shortly after that drift, we noticed some spent power pro in the prop. Everyone's lines on board were accounted for and intact. The rock gods decided to regurgitate about 20 yards of 30lb and we found it doing the counter drift powering into the SE winds.. YIKES. Fortunately, Schultz was dressed for the occasion (swim trunks and all) and volunteered to plunge into mother Atlantic to do the required surgery. Coogan in the meantime kept an eye out for those that might have thought Schutz was a just some big bait. Here's pics of the crew, Schultz donning a PFD and teathered, and the last fluke for us for the season. Back at port around 3:30, cleaned the boat and some fish. Wil have the prop pulled to check the seal.
Looking forward to bassing shortly.
