The sea conditions this July will not go down in history as the best July to swim or fish in the ocean. The water has been very cold due to a steady south west wind which has blown for a good part of the summer. We had a few days a week ago when the wind came out of the north and gave us a glimmer of hope as water temperatures rose in the 70's. Less then a week later, the persistent west wind returned and blew the warm surface water away from the beach and created an upwelling of green bottom water. This has created dense fog and slow fishing. Here are my reports from the past several days:
7/18 Fished the Garden State South Reef with Ed Lawson and crew and found surface temps in the low 60's. We did manage to put a few keeper fluke in the cooler but had to work hard for them. The catch of the day was a 6.22lb tog which was caught while drifting using a fluke rig baited with squid and spearing.
7/19 Ran offshore to the Lemke's Canyon in search of blue-fin tuna. Found thick fog for the first 30 miles and I was glued to the radar for most of the trip. Shortly after we left the fog bank the wind kicked up to a steady 20knots and the seas grew to an uncomfortable 4-6 ft. We decided to call it an early day and picked up around 12:30 after going for a long boat ride.
7/20
Found thick fog again in the morning so we decided to stay in the bay and flounder fish in the clam stakes on the Mystic Island side of the fish factory. We had steady action of short fluke and I can so that most of the boats around us did as well. The throwback to keeper ration was around 12 to 1. Gulp minnows on a jig head seemed to do the trick.
7/22
Ran outside again to the garden State South Reef. The conditions wee beautiful with a slight breeze and a perfect drift. The water temps had risen to around 65 degrees. We boated many fluke today which was a nice surprise and added several blue humpback black sea bass to the tally. We were the only boat on the GSS today which was nice but a little eerie.
