Weakfish Tips

[gymrat987654321]

We have striper tips, fluke tips, seabass tips, and blackfish tips, but no thread for weakfish tips. Weakfish season is starting and I want to catch my first weakie. So I understand from wink_man's post that they are in Barnegat Bay and that that pink is the way to go. I have a medium action surf rod with 20# mono, is this good? I'm probably going to head down to the Mantoloking Bridge next week and I really wanna catch a weakie. All tips will be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance. How about a sticky on this?

[wink_man]

Gymrat,
     I feel your outfit is a bit heavy, but doable for the Mantaloking Bridge/Point Pleasant Canal area. You'll be making a thousand casts to catch a weakfish, and a heavy outfit will wear you down. Also, if you want to fish weakies, expect disappointment on a fairly regular basis, they are elusvie, and efficient feeders, and difficult to catch because of that.

     What I find best for that area, is a 6' 6" to 7' freshwater, medium action freshwater GRAPHITE rod, and a small spinning reel loaded with either 12lb mono, or 15 lb braid. An outfit such as this will weigh 14 ounces to 1 pound 2 ounces, and you can cast it and jig it all day without tiring. It is also quite capable of handling any weakie you run across.

We've already discussed lures, and it was stated that you'll use jigs anywhere from 1/4 to 1 ounce with a pink 'something'. If you have to go down to 1/2, or a 1/4 ounce jig, you won't be able to cast it very far with 20 lb test, which will be a big disadvantage to you.

If you go to the sticky 'Jigs and how we use them' in this section, I have a blurb on the first page of that sticky that may help you as to how I fish the lures.

Nighttime is obviously better than daytime for weakies, and while I don't have any problems catching them during the day, it won't happen on weekends with boat traffic. So try to fish at night, there's a considerable amount of boat traffic in that area on weekends, so night fishing will increase your odds.

Hope this helped you, if you have anymore questions, let me know, and I'll see if I can answer them.

Garry

[PeggyLee]

Got their name Weakie because their mouth is very delicate, so listen to Wink Man and go with the lite stuff,10-12-14lb(if you feel more confident with 14lb). Good Luck out there.

[wink_man]

Got their name Weakie because their mouth is very delicate, so listen to Wink Man and go with the lite stuff,10-12-14lb(if you feel more confident with 14lb). Good Luck out there.

Good point Sir, something I just take for granted and assume everyone is aware of, which brings me to another point I forgot to mention Gymrat.

Make sure you have a good landing net, because if you try to lift them, you will surely have the hook tear out. Thanks for the reminder PeggyLee.

Garry

[Pfishingruven]

Great info, thanks!

 

[wink_man]

Went looking for pink 'bubblegum' Fin-s today at several stores. The new ones out are NO GOOD, they are entirely to red, NOT pink as they should be. The Fin-S imitates a tapeworm, the weakies favorite meal, and tapeworms are pink, not red. Old Herb Reed of the Fin-S company doesn't realize it yet, but he just became Zooms best salesman, LMAO.


The weakfish 'sharpie' will stock up on the pink bait of his choice(be it Fin-S, Zooms, Sluggos, etc), in the spring and summer months, and will have 'in stock' in his home, tackle box, whatever, at the absolute minimum 20 packs, amd maintain that constantly. Sounds excessive and compulsive, doesn't it.

However, in the fall, when the stores don't bother replenishing stock due to fishing season ending, when the weakies are biting, and those dratted blues are even more aggressive than the weakies, and you're going through 2 packs of them a day to bluefish destroying them, you're going to say, 'that wink-man is nuts, you need at least 40 packs in stock', LMAO. This is another one of those 'Don't ask me how I know this' thingies.

[Pfishingruven]

Went looking for pink 'bubblegum' Fin-s today at several stores. The new ones out are NO GOOD, they are entirely to red, NOT pink as they should be. The Fin-S imitates a tapeworm, the weakies favorite meal, and tapeworms are pink, not red.

Well that is not good news!  I kind of like the Fin-S over some of the others, but...!! 

Going off of what you said about tapeworms...have you ever tried regular plastic worms in pink??  Either Texas rigged or on a weighted worm hook??  Or are the worms to skinny to imitate the actual bait??

 

[wink_man]

Going off of what you said about tapeworms...have you ever tried regular plastic worms in pink??  Either Texas rigged or on a weighted worm hook??  Or are the worms to skinny to imitate the actual bait??

 

I have never tried regular plastic worms, although I imagine if weakies are keyed in on the color, they might work.

Regular plastic worms are round and thin, whereas a tapeworm is wider and flat, thats why the Fin-S, Zoom etc, are such a good imitation of them.

Have never used weighted worm hooks or rigged them texas style either, have always used white jig heads in 1/4 thru 1 ounce weights, it has always worked for me.

Garry

[SharkHart]

Around the change of the tide is key.  I had some sat night that were hitting real nice end of incomming and beginning of outgoing then they suddenly shut off with the current moving.

They should pick up nicely soon with ones up to 22" or better mixed in.

[fishon42]

ive never caught a weakfish in my life. 

[ped579]

Well its about time...

[catfish hunter]

if from boat find them on fish finder then set up a simple rig using a sinker slide and a leader length long engough to get you bait up in the depth they are holding in ,for a hook I use a floating jig head {like they use for walleye's} .It will lift you bait up into the feed zone.I had a couple days last year w/ 50 or more on this rig

[Luna Sea 5]

Def. don't power set the hook, you will come up empty and rip there lips... Just like AJ said.

[DAK]

Two words: Myers Hole

[gottog]

While pink is a go-to color, don't discount yellow either.  Slayed weakies in Raritan Bay on a yellow bucktail tipped with a Gulp Sandworm.  Other color bucktails, including pink, were not as effective   Sometimes you just have to listen to the fish and give them what they want

Usually get a decent shot at them in Reach Channel once the peanuts start getting flushed out.

[njdevil]

Hi Gottog

Do you know if the Sea Hawk be targetting weakfish after the fluke season?

NJDEVIL 

[gottog]

If they're around

From what I've seen, if there are many spikes around one year(usually get them on the sabiki while trying for snapper blues) you see a good run in Raritan Bay 2-3 years later.  We'll see this year if it holds true.

Standard 3x3 rig works well.  Basically 3way with 3' leader for hook and 3' shot of line to sinker.
I generally modify mine a bit making the length to hook about 2' and to sinker about 18"
Will bait with Gulp sandworm or any other plastic worm and add a piece of the real deal.  Peanut bunker and snapper blues are also deadly.  Had phenominal fishing a few seasons ago from shore in the back using dead snappers on a hi-lo rig.

Bucktailing works quite well too.

[Treebeard]

Not much I can add here, except in referance to finding the pink Fin-S baits.. Take a look at the Tsunami Split Tail Minnows..(3,4, and 5")  They come in a Bubblegum, and Hot Pink/Gold flash colors. They swim sweetly, and I've had good success with them in both fresh and saltwater. Have'nt used them on Weaks yet, but plan to this season.. Nice Mustad Ultra Point hook on'em too, and pretty reasonably priced for a rigged bait.
Here's a link:
  http://www.biminibayoutfitters.com/tssplittailminnow.htm

[bassnblues]

I second the rig GT describes. In addition to Gulp Sandworms, fishbites works great also.

IMO, the key is finding them and staying on them. A couple of years ago, my fishfinder wasn't working but I killed 'em a couple of times by making short drifts over the edge of the channel.

[catfish hunter]

lets hope the run is as good as it was last year