With New York flounder season opening up April 1st, New Jersey anglers get a head start. Winter flounder and striped bass combos if you’re lucky. Flounder season is in full swing with the Navesink and Shrewsbury River producing some action over the weekend. Over the next 2 weeks we should see numbers pick up as more and more boats get back in the water to kick off 2008 .The Keyport Flats are also showing signs with party boats and private charters reporting short bass and flounder up to 16 inches.
Navasink, Shrewsbury River and the Raritan bay already have huge schools of bunker and herring migrating through, so big you can smell it in the air. The smell of spring to all anglers.Ooooh that smell, it’s the spring fever we all look forward to getting. These schools of bait bring the season to a great start.
Over the next several weeks big migrating bass will be on hot pursuit of these massive schools as they fatten up. This makes the Raritan Bay one of the top fishing grounds in the world. Trophy fish will be caught as the water temperatures reach into the 50’s the bigger your presentation the bigger the fish.
Bass from 20 to 30lbs are common and playing catch and release with these fish is what I love best. The Raritan bay is almost like the end of the world, a giant pool where bunker end up spending the summer in search of plankton and the Raritan Bay is rich in plankton. A place where big hungry bass and chopper blues patrol and corral these fish for the summer. Truly an angler’s paradise.
If plankton and bunker were removed from the food chain so would fishing as we know it. That’s what makes the Raritan Bay so special. The Raritan harbors everything from the bottom of the food chain like plankton and bunker to everything in between. It holds a variety of sport fish such as fluke, flounder, weakfish, blues, bass, porgies and blackfish. With big schools around like this we should have a great bass season in 2008.To stay updated with the latest fishing reports log onto NJSaltwaterfisherman.com Fish On
