Had the Sal Guarino charter on board today consisting of Sal, Jason, Alex, Mike, and Joey. The guys wanted to tog all day and finish up looking for some fish to jig.
Ran north, pounding our way up the beach with that stiff NNE wind. Seas were nice till we got up past Long Branch then they started getting a little steep with the wind against tide. Whatever the case, we set up on some rough stuff off Monmouth Beach and got a slow pick of mostly shorts with a few keepers mixed in. Lots of bergall bites as well.
By 10 the seas laid down nice, but we were tired of playing with the small fish so we made a few drops in deeper water (45-50') out to the east and on the SH reef - just more shorts with 1 or 2 more keepers mixed in. By 11 I decided to try even deeper, so we moved out to some rough stuff in 60-70' and got a slow pick going with bigger tog. These were mostly keeper fish, and we had a couple in the 4-6# class boated as well as a real nice ling by Alex. These fish would bite real scratchy - we would get a nice flurry going then it'd just shut off, so we made a few wiggles and got a couple more.
By 2:30 the guys had enough of toggin' so we headed south looking for some jiggable fish. We finally found some life after running 10+ miles back towards our inlet and had some crazy readings right on the bottom - nothing but a mess of big gators and a few dogfish - no bass!
Called it a day at 4. We wound up boating ~40 tog, with only 18 of them being legal. Had a few nice ones in the box, topped by a pair of nice 5-6#ers taken by Jason and Sal respectively, as well as 1 ling and a mess of bluefish. A solid day but the fishing can be best described as just a pick.
