Dec 10th, one of my many yearly tog trips aboard the Fish Monger. I book these trips during the heart of winter and really look forward to them all year as any avid tog fisherman should!!
As always, I had to put together an all star cast/crew for this outing. You don't show up to this boat with a bunch of first timers.. The Fish Monger takes their fishing seriously , especially their black fishing!! As does this crew..
Roll the credits ....
you know him, you love him, My side kick, Team north and fun phone member, not to mention my best fishing buddie Paule had to make the roster! I try not to leave home without em..
I Gota have Rick in attendance, aka the Lobsterman, one of NJSalts top tiered tog slayers, Team North's Captain and fun phone cast member and reason we get offshore tuna fishing every year.
Being the way things have been as of late we had to have tight security on the boat ... So the call was made and we secured Joe ( Irishayes ) As you all know Joe is a retired cop who rounded up his posse and brought Johnny Oz and Keven to keep us safe on the high seas.
If you need some humor and an infectious smile and we do! You go ahead and get Skip on board to pull on some toggies.
Another go to in these tough serious situations is to give a shout out to Mark ( Treebeard ) the man can fish with the best of them, plus he brings the most beautiful hand crafted rods for all to drool over !!
Two more would round out the cast, Bob S. and Suzanne.. Both Monger regulars .. ( not on NJsalt )
Scheduled for a 6am launch time.. My alarm is set to 3:15am which gets me to the boat around 5:30
Upon arrival and backing into my parking spot at South Side Marina.. I notice 4 guys looking really suspicious that appeared to be breaking into Point Lobster !!
Upon further inspection I figure out its just Joe, Skip, Johnny Oz and Kevin...What a relief !
Finally we get everyone there, load up, throw the ropes and head off to the grounds at 6am Sharp !
Out the inlet we go and are met with a very lazy 2 maybe 3 foot swell as Jerry points the boat north and gets on the throttles! I can just feel its gona be a great day !
Usually these mid to late Dec trips are right at or below the freezing temperature...Not the case yesterday!! 50 plus degrees.. some were down to their tee shirts !!
We set up on the first drop, Don't want to spot burn so lets just say we all went to church on Thursday.
Action started as soon as the first crabs hit the bottom, the fish were chewing their heads off and coming over the rail at a good clip. Joe was an early contributor to the box with probably some of the biggest fish for the day.
Everyone else got into the hot action putting fish in the box early on then the bite trickled and died to a pick which would last for the most of the day with the exception of a drop we had in the afternoon that produced a nice 1/2 hour flurry.
I could say that guy caught this many and he caught that many....but wouldn't. But I will say this crew boxed up 60 real nice tog for a Monger crew limit !!
Did anyone have their doubts
Couldn't fish on a better boat, ask for a better crew, fish in better weather or have better fishing than we enjoyed yesterday!! The laughs were constant. Just a fantastic day of relaxing/fishing with great friends !!!!!
One side note to the trip is that Mark Treebeard had some health issues ( kidney stones ) and could not make the trip and had to cancel last minute, I spoke to him this morning and he's doing ok.
The silver lining to that is we passed a hat around the boat at the end of our trip and with no reservation the entire crew pitched in and covered his fare. Bad enough Mark had to miss the trip but that really speaks to how we regard Mark and additionally the caliber of people we have here on this site. Events like that makes me incredibly proud to be a member here and call you friends !!!!
Great time/trip !!
Also like to thanks our sponsors..
Roll Credits ......
The Fish Monger..Jerry and Mate John aka best in the biz !
Coors light
Budweiser
Dunkin doughnuts
Quick Check
Phil's Custom Rods
Gamakatsu
NJoy
Verizon
Grundens
