Welcome to Spring saltwater fishing in NJ!

We thought that we'd start with what we know about this years regulations. It's possible that this week the official regulations sheets may be published. If so, we will post it on the internet ASAP, and we will put copies on the front counter. For this weekend, we put together a highlight sheet for the front counter.

2000 Changes so far:
Fluke (Summer Flounder) Season Opens May 6-Oct. 20, 15 1/2" minimum, 8 fish /angler/day limit
Winter Flounder Opens Season Mar. 1-May 31 & Sept. 15 - Dec. 31, 10 1/2" minimum, no limit
Striped Bass Currently:28" minimum 2 fish/angler/day limit,
Subject to change this year when new law passes approx. mid-May

Crabbing has been active in the Mystic Island lagoons and surrounding area creeks since the end of March. The blue claws came out of the mud early, and we have had many reports of good sized keeper crabs. Minimum size limit is still 4 1/2” measurement point to point across the top of the shell. Stone crabs are still around, but they only seem to be in the areas close to the bay. The $3.00 crab pot license is still necessary by law for all pot style crab traps. Turtle excluders are still required in the doors of the traps when using them in the lagoons and creeks, although we have heard that there is litigation in progress to terminate that law. In the event that the law is rescinded, we will post the current information about the new law in the next available bulletin.

The Spring was off to a very good start, with a nice early run of striped bass on Graveling Point. Our $100.00 reward for first keeper striper was caught by Chris Sylvestro on March third. His fish was just barely a keeper at 28 1/4 inches and weighed 8 pounds 2 ounces. The heaviest striped bass weighed in our store so far this season was caught by Nick Cardone on March 27th. His bass weighed 22 pounds 8 ounces and was caught on bloodworms fishing at Graveling Point. Boat fishing for stripers continues to be active from the mouth of the Mullica River near Oysterbed Point to well west or up river from Parkway bridge. Live Herring and bloodworms are the choice baits for river striped bass anglers. We are not stocking any live herring and are not aware of any place locally where they may be purchased. Most anglers who are fishing herring spent the last two weeks of April harvesting their baits at the Batsto Falls or the Mays Landing train trestle bridge and stocked them up in fish pens in their back yards. We have eels if you would like to give them a try. Striper fishing from the banks at Graveling Point has slowed down over the last two weeks, with the arrival of the warmer water, bluefish and the weakfish.

Bluefishing has been erratic due to fluctuating water temperatures. Earlier in the week, the water chill caused the blues to drop off the feed a bit. But, on Wednesday, there was some real good bluefishing activity in the area of the mouth of the Mullica River on cut mackerel bait on the incoming tide. When the tide changed, the action dropped right off. We got a little shot of fresh bunker in this morning, so if there is any left when your making a bluefishing trip, be sure to take some along. The warmer weather forecasted for this weekend should perk up the bluefishing action even more. Right now, and probably through out the weekend, it is likely that the blues are only going to want bait. Sometime during the middle of next week they will become active enough to chase lures like a number three Clarke Spoons, short 1/2 ounce ponytails, or a 16 series bomber lure in color olive/white belly, 16axsig is the model number; I call it Great Bay green. Until then, anchor up, use monofilament float rigs, not steel just yet, and give the blues some bait.

The weakfish are here with large tiderunners being caught on a fairly regular basis. Largest weakfish weighed in so far this season was caught by Brian Fairfield on April 29th. His weakfish weighed 8 pounds 14 ounces and was 29 1/2 inches in length. Now that’s a whopper. There were quite a few weakfish weighed in between 4 pounds and 8 pounds during past two weeks. Many of the weakfish reported are being caught on 4” Fin-s Lures, specifically the bubblegum ice color and the pearl white color and Funky Fish. The trick reported by some of the anglers is to use 1/2 ounce leads with the 4” Fin-s and work the lures low and slow. Without a doubt, it is necessary to be fishing for the weakfish during the first hour of daylight and the last hour of daylight. It is still possible to catch a weaky during the bright sun of the day, but the probability of catching them is drastically reduced. The weakfish have been caught on bloodworms too, but the worms have been in short supply due to the amount of rain they've been getting up in Maine along with the complication that it is bloodworm spawning season. For those anglers who like to fish with sandworms, we have a couple of flats due here on Friday morning. Weakfishing hot spots have been Little Sheepshead Creek and Grassy Channel if your a boater and the banks at Little Sheepshead Creek at the fifth bridge on Great Bay Boulevard if you are fishing by land.

Mackerel is in stock this year, both whole frozen fish, and salted fillets. The fillets are priced at 3 for $2.00. We don’t have too many salted fillets left though. As most mackerel anglers know, mackerel season was cut short this year by, what else, the weather. We had half a Friday and a full day of mackerel fishing Saturday, April 14th, and 15th and that was it. The rest of the mackerel fishing days were blown out by crummy weather. I have been in contact with a bait wholesaler in Rhode Island several times in the past ten days. I just checked in a few minutes ago and they are getting nervous. The mackerel were due in their area last week, but they had miserable weather up there too and they figured the boats would get out this week to catch, but have yet to bring a mackerel to port. I will call again on Monday to see if they are having any luck and then maybe we will get another ton of mackerel to fillet for this season.

Saturday May 6th is the opening day of Fluke season. The Fluke size limit is 15 1/2 inches and the bag limit is 8 fish per angler. If we were able to get a May first opening, many a spring angler would be well on their way to having a freezer full of fluke fillets. However, there might not be too much truth to that due to the horrible string of weather we have had so far. Many anglers are still scrambling to get their boats in the water before Saturday. Even so, the weakfishing and bluefishing anglers and some catch and release fluke anglers have caught quite a few fluke already. Largest fluke released was just about five pounds. I’ll bet that was a heart breaker. Sorry to hear about that one Kenny! Places to fish are going to be the inland waterway and Grassy Channel in the back part of the Great Bay around the 139 marker. These shallower water areas produce more fluke in the Spring time. If your looking for Mr. six pound fluke, he is likely to be caught in the deeper water area of the 126 marker, but you can spend all day fishing in that area just catching that one fluke. Every Spring, quite a few fluke are caught in the clam stakes out in front of Great Bay marina or Mystic Island beach area too. You can use your favorite fluke rigs, but I think you will need light shad darts or bucktails or spin and glow float rigs to keep out of the algae type grass. Bait choices are going to be mackerel strips which are always the hot bait ticket in the Spring as well as the old standby squid and minnows. Soaking the squid in shedder oil is a recommended option, which many anglers feel gives them an extra edge at catching both fluke and weakfish.