Had 3 of my best friends aboard this morning for a RB slam attempt. The plan was to leave an hour earlier to catch the sunrise bite. Tom Jim and Cooch ready for arm burning fun.
Nice conditions; got to the spot quickly, lines out, fish boxed immediately. Striper and blues, everyone's got multiple hookups and the sun is just coming up. A few guys show up, we're outta there.
Next stop stripped up a blue and bucktailin up a couple doormatties ok not really but 22" and 23" in short order. Box is bulging now here comes some bunks. Bass feeding underneath another goes in the box. 730.
Lost the tide and here comes NYDEP,awesome boat, 3 of our new best friends. Sure c'mon board, yer gonna anyways. Nice courteous efficient and thorough search revealed all the fish were way good, flares not so much. Plenty of lifejax, trowables, and checked some hatches even I didn't know about.
Learned a couple things:
NO reciprocity on the free registry NY-NJ. You need both. Both free.
For day use, that orange flag that comes with the flares will suffice if your flares are expired. Phew! I always thought that was a poncho or some useless cr@p- not so.
Fluke in NY was eased more than NJ but still stricter at 4@19.5".
Buzz Killington and his band left with a wave and a smile but the damage was done. No more fish for us, but still a happy day on da bay!