The Compass Rose has been moved north to Sandy Hook, NJ for the fall striper run.  She will be docked at the Oceanview Marina located at 270 Ocean Ave, Sea Brite, NJ, slip #1.  

Striper season does not really get going until mid October.  I am going to run a couple of bluefin tuna trips out to the Mud Hole and surrounding areas until striper season get under way.  I will shortly post what type of striper trips I will be running and the prices.  We had an extremely successful fall season two years ago in Sandy Hook with my older boat and the Compass Rose will make the experience all the more fun.

Here is a photo a client took off my boat of a Humpback Whale.  We sighted the whale 3.5 miles off Beach Haven on August 29th while we heading home from the Garden State South Reef.  I used to work for a whale watching company in Bar Harbor, Maine while I was going to college so I got pretty good at identifying whales by the angle of their spout and the markings on their tails.  I have seen Humpback whales in Hawaii and off Cape May in the late fall but never one in our area in the middle of the summer.  Seeing these creatures in our area was pretty common in the 1800's until they were almost hunted to extinction.  The ocean water must be pretty productive in our area to support such an amazing and enormous animal.

Just when we were experiencing the best fluke fishing of the year, the season comes to an earlier end then we were all expecting.  The official end to the season will be this Sunday, September 7th unless you like to fish in 8-12ft seas which are being for-casted due to the arrival of our first Northeast Hurricane of the season, Hurricane Hannah.  Do you think the government will be kind and extend the season another week-Ha!Ha!.  I must say that we were very lucky this summer with great weather.  The water temps were very  cool until the beginning of August, however, we were blessed with sunny days and light winds for the most part.

We ended our season fishing exclusively on the Garden State South Reef.  The big fluke were hanging around structure on the reef and the jumbo sea bass started to move in from offshore.  I will be fishing a couple of inshore tuna trips in September (weather pending) before I decide if I am going to move the boat up to Sandy Hook for the fall striper run.  My new boat is too large for my old slip up in the Highlands so I will have to go slip hunting one day this month.  Here are a couple of fishing shots from labor day weekend.  The large fluke in the photo was almost 26" and weighed close to 6lbs.  No-that little sailor didn't catch that fish.  Look at the beautiful color on the black sea bass.