FYI...from my friend Darren Stiles while running my boat yesterday, Monday Oct 13th.
Took joes boat TunaTales out for blackfish with my friend Jeff Alters of Rahway. I headed north of shark river inlet at 7 a.m. and dropped the hook around 7:30 ro so and jeff caught the first blackfish of the day although it was a short it was a good start. The bite was on and we started to bail the blackfish. After landing and releasing plenty of shorts and alot of keepers to 7 pounds the bite died out a little and i made an adjustment on the anchor and we were back on the fish. I landed 20 keepers between 6 and 7 pounds that were released. Then i got the one i always wanted. I felt the bait pick up and start to move off. I set the hook and the fish ran for the bottom. Keeping his head up i was able to get him halfway up and he runs to the bottom again. After thre or four runs to the bottom i finally get it to the serface and jeff slides the net under it and it tipped the scales at 12 pounds even. All fish i caught today were caught on a fluke rod with 20 pound test which made it that much more fun. I also caught a 9 pounder, 7 pounder and a mess of 5 and 6 pounders that were released. Jeff alters was not on his game but did manage to put one nice 7 pounder in the boat for his keeper. We rounded out the catch with a couple keeper seabass and some decent size porgies. Later in the afternoon the bite died out and we made a couple moves but the bite was just not happening so we headed in around 4 p.m. Great day on the water and some great blackfishing.
Darren
