The water temperature drove the fishing this weekend on the ocean reefs.
On Friday, I had Mike Kirkup and his crew out for a tide trip to the ocean reefs. The day started off a bit breezy and settled down by 9AM. We rounded the southern end of LBI and headed 9 miles to the Garden State South Reef. I was very pleased to see the water temps climb as we got further and further off the coastline. By the time we reached the reef, we had water temps hovering around 70 degrees which is on the high side this early in the season. We started fishing and had a steady pick of fluke and sea bass. The wind dropped out completely around noon which makes for poor fishing conditions so we decided to make a move and headed towards the Little Egg Reef. The reef was also slow so we moved again and this time ended up fishing the research buoys inside the reef site. This was a good move and we once again had a very nice steady pick of fluke and landed a beauty around 22". For the day we caught over 20 fluke( five keepers) and several sea bass with a jumbo blue hump back to top it off.
The winds on Friday night blew hard all night long out of the West and I knew this was going to be a problem for the fishing conditions. Strong winds out of the West mean cold water. The winds out of the West blow the warm surface offshore and are replaced by cold bottom water which up-wells to replace the less dense warm water. We saw a five degree drop in water temperature from the day before and the fishing never really turned on for us. We had slow pick for most of the day and managed to bring home two nice keeper fluke but it was not a very god catching day. On the other hand, we had a great time telling stories and I had the honor of fishing with a true NYPD Blue detective all day. There was no other place I would have like to have spent the 4th of July.
Sunday was another beautiful day on the water. The water temperatures heated back up to around 67.5 degrees and the fishing was much better. We worked the reef areas again once more and had fluke up to 24". The winds were light and the humidity was very low. It felt like a September Day. I hope this is a good sign of things to come.
