Sandy Hook striped bass caught on the fly rod!! This week we had out Rich Winter for a full day of striped bass casting and jigging. The ocean was mirror calm and despite being very cold in the am, the temperature went up to near 50 by the end of the trip. We had birds working all day and stripers swirling on top. We caught them on spinning tackle with poppers on the surface. We caught them on Ava jigs on the bottom and any where in between. The soft Storm swim shad baits worked really well  in the bunker color. But what Rich really wanted was to catch these stripers on his fly rod. He tried a couple different smaller flies that did not work. Then he switched to a larger fly that looked more like the sand eels the bass were throwing up. He immediately started to catch stripers on that fly. 24 bass were caught that day and were up to a high of 34". We even had some late season bluefish action as well. What a super day!!

 Stripers, stripers, and more stripers. No matter which way we fish them, we are catching full limits of bass. Eeling, casting, and trolling has been producing tons of Sandy Hook stripers. We trolled yesterday with Dave, and besides the 15 stripers we landed to 35", we had some of the biggest bluefish I have seen in years. They went up to a high of 18 lbs.!!  Big bruisers. We even had a fish, don't know if it was a hugh bluefish or a big striped bass, that straightened out the hook on a Tony Acetta pet spoon. It was pulled straight out and bent to one side. Wish we could have landed that fish! Blackfishing has been good on the reef with plenty of action and even some ling mixed in. Water temp. is still at 52.1 degrees in the ocean. We will be catching Sandy Hook striped bass for some time to come!

 Wednesday we had aboard Bill Stephens, Bob Donahue, Rick, and Ernie. The weather man was predicting rain all day, but we had great weather till around noon. No rain, calm winds and even calmer seas. It did not start raining till around noon, and then it was only a light drizzle. Water temp. was up to almost  55 degrees. You can see the stripers landed in the attached photo with Bob landing the first striper of the day and the largest striped bass of the day at 36". The photo looks a little foggy as it was raining when I took the picture. Sandy Hook striped bass fishing is good right now. We have been eeling mostly, but we can troll if you like. Still waiting for the birds to start working. Are we going to have a late striped bass season??

THE OPEN BOAT TRIP YESTERDAY AFTERNOON DID IT AGAIN ! WE FISHED THE SANDY HOOK AREA. WE HAD ABOARD, DEE, ROB, JARRET, AND AL. THIS WAS THE AFTERNOON TRIP AT THE SPECIAL PRICE. WE LANDED A FULL LIMIT OF STRIPED BASS UP TO A HIGH OF 35" AND 18 LBS. MOST OF THE OTHER FISH WERE AROUND 34". GREAT FISHING ON EELS AND WE EVEN HAD A DOUBLE HEADER ON TWICE!  2 ANGLERS CAUGHT THE LARGEST STRIPERS OF THEIR LIFE. THE OPEN BOAT TRIPS ALWAYS SEEM TO PRODUCE GREAT FISHING AND EVEN SOME NEW FISHING FRIENDS. WHAT A GOOD LATE AFTERNOON OF FISHING. WE GOT BACK TO THE DOCK JUST WHEN IT WAS TOTALLY DARK. YOU SHOULD HAVE BEEN THERE!!