12/30

We got through December with no problems. The weather stayed mild and the fishing was anywhere from average to epic. All we have in Philly is the Flatheads which may or may not be totally done for the season now. I got out with James and Owen the other night and we caught several Flatheads to 16lbs, I only used one rod and about 3 pieces of cut bait the whole time but caught 2 Flats and a Channel in the 2 hours I was there. Thats not a bad night, and for the time of year I couldn't be happier with the action. Of coarse now water temps have dropped a few degrees, the river has risen back up to 10x flow, and the action shut down. There is opportunity to catch Flatheads TODAY, RIGHT NOW, as water temps are still in the high 40's and the flow is stabilizing, and if we're lucky we might even be able to stick a January Flathead, which would be much more ridiculous than the December Flatheads we're seeing now.

Tip for those wanting to catch flatheads Today: Fish the deepest slowest water you can find. Understand these Flatheads were holed up for the winter just a week ago, so hit them in their winter holes with cut bait and you have a chance. You don't need much bait, you could honestly get a couple hours of Flatheading in with just a couple bluegills, I'd suggest cutting them into 3 pieces. Pretty stumped on what to target the next couple weeks here, thinking about Tog, Blue Cats in the Potomac, and also keeping an eye on party boat Cod reports from NY and RI.

For now, here are a couple Philly Flatheads, 13lb Channey and a garter snake who all who've decided to start chewing again just days before New Years-

12/26

Warmer than average temperatures, way warmer. Record highs have been falling left and right, we are still lucking out (or striking out, depending on how you look at it) with this El Nino. It was Christmas Eve when I figured it was about time to try the Schuylkill River for the warmwater species of Catfish we know and love, the Flathead, so I met up with Mike and Tan to fish a deep 30 foot pool for a couple hours. Flatheads are typically active in water temps above 50 degrees, with 60-75 being their prime range. Right now with water temps holding in the low 50's it is expected that there should be a bit of action. Low and behold, right at dusk on Dec. 24th, Mike got a promising run which ended up being the first December Flathead I personally have ever seen come from our river. Most years, we're lucky to catch Flatheads in November, on average our season ends sometime around Halloween, whenever water temps dip to around 50 degrees. There have been numerous times this month where I thought I should go down to the river and try for the December Flathead, but never did, not until right now, around Christmas, when water temps popped up and over 50 degrees, to now almost 55 degrees. As you can guess, by now there is a Flathead bite on the Schuylkill, if you can get some cutbait or fresh meat into their wintering holes, there is certainty of hooking up. I fished again today, this time with Romo way up the river, upstream of Black Rock. We fell victim to the 5 minute curse when a Fully Scaled Mirror Carp made a meal of my gob of nightcrawler. We intended on using cutbait for these Flatheads however couldn't find anything to chunk, so therefore opted for plan B which was worms from Wal Mart. We just had a good amount of rain which bumped our flows up to around 10x of what they average for this time of year, 10k cfs or so, receded now to around 4-5k cfs. Right after a rain is always a good time to throw some worms. Tomorrow (Sunday), is a sure bet for Schuylkill Flatheads, hopefully someone gets out there and puts a hurtin on them. James and Owen, a couple buddies of mine, were in on the bite way downriver of us today, in Philly, where they landed 6 fish to about 15lbs. Welcome to the new age, where we're catching Flatheads after Chrismas.

In other news, Stripers to 50" were reported from the beach today around IBSP. I didn't see any pictures of the alleged miracle cows, however did see proof as a couple 40"+ Bass were weighed in to the shops in central NJ. To whoever caught 40"+ Bass from the beach today, my hat is off to you, somehow 2015 just keeps producing. No word on many details but there are certainly enough Herring along our beaches to hold these fish, I wish I was there today. There are very few surf anglers left out there. 8'+ seas on Tuesday will but the brakes on the surf bite for awhile, who knows how long that action will last.

2 times I Flathead fished, and both times struck out. I witnessed 2 caught, both runts. Our buddy James wins the prize for December Flatheads, as him and Owen had 6 fish with a few 15lbers in the mix, all tonight from the Schuylkill River in Philadelphia where water temps are pushing 55 degrees. My skunking's didn't go unnoticed however, as the fish gods gifted the gold in form of full scale mirror-

12/23

Fished off Seaside New Jersey on Sunday from 1 to 4pm. There were reports of Bluefin sightings close to shore for the few days prior, and I was not planning this trip at all until Saturday night when I saw a video of what was more than likely Bluefin crashing bait half a mile to a mile off the beach. I had seen pictures on Instagram and Facebook of 50-150lb Bluefins earlier in December, but found out that those guys were fishing well out of range of a Kayak. Saturday though, the switch flipped, I called Romo who had been planning on fishing Sunday for "marsh creek muskies" and asked if he was down. He's like me, ready to pounce on whatever fresh information pops up, ready to change tactics just the night before, and with that, it was determined, we'd be be Bluefin fishing.

Sunday comes along, I sleep til 10am, awakened by the call of Romo saying he had just spent 100$ on Orca's and flouro, and I quickly got up and hauled ass to the shore. 1pm we're there on the beach ready to launch.

I should warn you that I am a very aggressive fisherman. I have no self control when it comes to certain things. I knew going into this day the odds of running into or even seeing a bluefin were low. Way low. Going into this I figured I had a 1 in 10 chance of seeing a bluefin crash the surface within eyesight. I also was fairly certain that if nothing else there would be Blues and Schoolies to be caught, but just the idea of hooking a bluefin from kayak was more than enough to get us to the beach and kayaking the ocean.

We didn't see a single Bluefin. I had given up hope pretty quickly at that idea after seeing less and less life the further offshore we went. There were schools of Gannets flying in circles, hundreds of yards above the ocean, circling, as if pointing us to where a school of herring might be hanging deep. I was jigging 7" Flukes in about 50 feet of water a mile off the beach and caught a Fluke. The fishing was tough most of the day, all I brought was a tuna rod and a couple jigs I had just bought, some RonZ imitation looking things, and a pack of 7" white flukes. I had a few missed bites, some of which were dogfish, others Bluefish, and Im convinced at least one other missed bite was a Fluke. Two times I had my soft plastic bitten in half by Bluefish, both on the troll.

Romo brought a slightly more diverse box of artificials and caught a decent sized Bass (28" roughly) trolling a deep diving Xrap. He had a few more lost fish on the troll before dusk when the Bass started feeding on the surface. For about the last half hour of daylight there were flocks of birds picking bait with bass under them, and we briefly had a hot bite, getting a dozen or more bass between the 2 of us. Here are some pictures and a link to the video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OIGn_25CE8Y

9/15/15

We're live, back on it, the crack is back!

Lets start with the facts. 2015 is going to end as one of the most intense El Nino years on record, and for us saltwater folks, this has direct impact on our fisheries, most important of which is the warmer water that has taken grip on our coastal shorelines. Water temps in Southern New Jersey hit 80 degrees sometime in mid July, and have been hovering around 80 ever since. Now with the onslaught of shorter days and lower sun angle we are seeing our temps fall back a bit, but we're still in the mid 70's throughout most of NJ.

Lets take a look back to 2012, the warmest year on record. It brought warm waters to our shores at about the same time, and we had fantastic shark fishing all summer. Now in 2015, same deal, sharks on top of sharks on top of sharks. If you didn't catch any Sharks this season, you either didn't try, or you need to find better spots, because the run was strong all the way up to Cape Cod. Expect sharkin to finish strong sometime in October. 2012 also brought perhaps the best numbers of Redfish that our region had seen in decades, Redfish everywhere from as far north as IBSP and south, we got a real treat that year. Those fish were the 2010 year class of fish, for some reason we had an outstanding spawn in 2010 which is what put 2012 in the books as an epic Puppy Redfish year. That year our fish were all 15"-18". My best day that year came about a week after hurricane Sandy came through, where I easily put 40 Reds on the sand over the course of 2 days in Early November. Reds were caught through January that year.

Now in 2015, the 2010 year class is back, and after 5 years these fish are packing a punch, expect these fish to be over 30" and pushing 3' by the time they decide to head south in a couple months. Right now, there is a population of 5 year old Redfish spawning along our Cape May County beaches. Redfish are fall spawners, usually dropping their eggs in September along our out front beaches, before moving off the spawning grounds and onto their feeding grounds. They are concentrated around certain areas where they have chosen to spawn, and are feeding on Mullet and Sand Fleas, the bite has been going on for almost a month now, however you won't hear about this anywhere other than right here on sea money. Thanks to an elaborate network of die hard fishermen, I caught wind of this Redfish bite a couple weeks ago, I figured I'd spend all of Labor Day Weekend down at the shore probing the Jetty Pockets, Inlets, Creek Mouths and sand structures with mullet in search of these southern ghosts, and after 3 days I had nothing, absolutely nothing to show, other than a few Sandbar Sharks and a Couple Kingfish and Weakfish. Mullet was easy to come by that weekend, and has been ever since, which is providing our Reds with the forage they need to take up residence in our Jersey waters.

I filled in a friend on the Redfish bite, he got out in his boat for a couple hours one day and hit a 15lber in just a couple hours of fishing. The following week, he invited me out, and I finally got my chance at a Red, getting 3 Redfish all 32"-33", 2 fatty females ready to pop and one longer skinnier male, milting on my hands and shoes. 2 of these fish came on jigs, 3/8th ounce jigheads with 5"-7" zoom flukes in white and pink. 1 fish came on a live mullet fished on a half ounce jighead. These are rare fish for NJ, and a testament to the strength of the 2010 year class. I feel with the warm water of 2015 and the large number of spawning fish around right now that this will be another successful year class for the Spawning Redfish, which should strengthen this fishery as the years go by. With the decline in Striper population, and warmer trending water temperatures, it only makes sense that Redfish will become a more viable fishery for New Jersey in the future, also thanks in part to the brilliant regulations on these fish. Once a Redfish is sexually mature, at about 3 years of age, you are no longer allowed to harvest. You can harvest up to 5 fish depending on which state you live in, but there is a federal slot limit in place, which allows harvest of fish on 2 year olds only, which are just reaching sexual maturity. Redfish are a true Gamefish, incredibly versatile fishery, can be caught on all lures and baits, fight with an attitude and can handle mishandling better than most saltwater fish. The perfect fish for New Jersey, and all coastal waters.

Basically, the Redfish crack is back!

In other news, everything is slow! Worst year for Fluke fishing in probably 10 years, word on the water is a 29% reduction in recreational harvest in 2016 due to lower numbers of Fluke. I believe it, I haven't fished Fluke this year like I did in years past, but the few times I did I was lucky to pluck just a keeper or 3 in a whole day, a far cry for limiting out in 2 hours like I'd seen in years prior.

Striper Fishing... not much to say about Striper Fishing. They're there, and in fact 2015 has been a better year than the past 2, but still sub par in the books of those who've been doing it for more than a decade. I don't have much left for Stripers these days, after great fishing in years past, now it seems like more work than its worth. Actually, on second thought, Ill probably do a lot of Striper Fishing this fall.... for now though, water temps are too warm and I have the Redfish on the brain.

Albies! Albies showed up on the Jersey beaches this past week, they've been running strong in New England for awhile now, Jersey is just starting to get in on the fun. Schools of Albies have been seen running the beaches as far south as Cape May, and surely as far north as Sandy Hook. I'll put in a couple sessions in search of my first Jersey Albie, however, Ill be in Marthas Vineyard for a week in October, which is when the real Albie fishing will take place (hopefully!).

Freshwater wise... Man, I really don't have much for freshwater right now. I fished a couple tournaments in August, a bass Tourny on Octoraro lake and a Catfish Tourny on the Delaware. Didn't place in either. Filmed an episode of HookShots with Field and Stream Magazine, that was a lot of fun, kicked back on the river banks with 3 guys I've never met, one of which who makes his living off creating 10 minute Videos, hearing stories of traveling to fishing destinations and shows gone wrong.. Terrible fishing, but worthwhile company. Worth it? Yes.

Flathead fished a reservoir for the first time. Can't get into much detail about that, but saw some big Flatheads. The Schuylkill River sits low on my list of fishing destinations right now.

These are the fish for which will drive me to the edge and back over the next 2 months, beautiful Jersey Reds each in the 15lb range -