Garden State Trout

Curious if anyone here has reports of Albies in NJ? I'll be out on a buddy's boat tomorrow, not sure if Shark River or Raritan yet. The Albies have been around at times along with Spanish Macks, at least off the beach, so I'm bringing my 9 weight Loomis along just in case. Otherwise it will be a fluke day....

Havent heard of albies yet but plenty of mac's and lots of really close bft....dont think the 9 wt will help you much with them....been gettin bft inside of 10 miles

Fishybig wrote: ↑

Fri Jul 30, 2021 1:12 pm

Havent heard of albies yet but plenty of mac's and lots of really close bft....dont think the 9 wt will help you much with them....been gettin bft inside of 10 miles

I can handle a football sized bluefin if lucky enough to find any. It's a 10 weight reel with over 300 yards of backing. But I'm not anticipating catching tuna other than Albies. Spanish mackerel would be nice as well!

I just got back from Brigantine. Rays, small brown sharks and kingfish were in the surf. All the Fluke off a head boat were small as usual. We dod catch a few nice black sea bass in the bay, bit they are out of season. Also a few weakies which was nice to see.

lightenup wrote: ↑

Sun Aug 01, 2021 11:02 am

I just got back from Brigantine. Rays, small brown sharks and kingfish were in the surf. All the Fluke off a head boat were small as usual. We dod catch a few nice black sea bass in the bay, bit they are out of season. Also a few weakies which was nice to see.

I fished Saturday when seabass was still open. We caught many dozens, but made our personal limit 15" instead of the legal 12.5" length, so we only kept two fish for the four of us. I saw exactly one False Albacore jump out of the water, and it was well beyond casting range outside the Shark River inlet. I did have two Spanish mackerel take swipes at my flies before we left the inlet area for fluke grounds to the north. We wound up with 8 keeper fluke and released over 80 for a 10:1 short to keeper ratio. We caught and kept one blue as well. In addition, we had cow nosed rays swim past a few times, landed some skates and sea robins, and saw a few Spanish macks jump throughout the day as we ran around chasing fluke.

Lots of Albie reports all the way from the surf and inlets to party boats. It’s that time of year.

Johnw wrote: ↑

Fri Aug 27, 2021 7:54 am

Lots of Albie reports all the way from the surf and inlets to party boats. It’s that time of year.

Yup, and the reason it is is because I have to work and can't take time off to fish right now.

It was an historic summer for Fluke, still hot, especially from the beach. With all the shorts, next year should be better. Stripers are not far off, the bait is on the way, off of Ocean Grove beach, the size of a football field. Not my picture.

https://www.johnentwistlephotography.com/Videos/