The west winds which have plagued our area have finally turned to more of an easterly direction the last week and warmer waters which followed brought some excellent fishing.  The ocean temps are now in the mid to upper seventies and we have seen some of the best ocean fluking of the summer.  We had some wonderful catches of fluke and sea bass over the last few days with fluke up to 23" and tipping the scale over 5lbs.  We also found some nice blues along the beach and trolled them up using Clarke Spoons.  The water is still a bit green for my liking but if the fish are there and biting then that's really all that matters.

The recent west winds we have been experiencing in the LBI area have brought calm waters but slow fishing.  The west wind creates an upwelling effect by blowing the warm surface water away from the beach and out to sea.  The layer of cold bottom water, which is more dense, rises to the surface as the less dense water is pushed out to sea.  The result is one layer of cold and green water which makes for very poor fishing.  We spent the last week fishing in this 59 degree water and the fish just would not cooperate as they didn't enjoy the cold water any more than the beach goers. 

The good news is that today the wind is blowing hard out of the northeast and is expected to blow for the next couple of days.  Once the seas settle down by early this week, I expect the fishing to be red hot as that warm offshore water moves back into our area.  Today, the water temp was 74 degrees at the beach.  The problem is that the seas are 4-6 ft which is just too rough to fish.

I netted a batch of peanut bunker to be used for bait this week.  They are the perfect size for fluke bait.  I can't wait to get out there!

Captain Dave

The weather for this year's BHWMI was iffy again for what seems like the 20th year in a row.  What is a three day tournament turned into a two day tournament due to a continuous line of thunderstorms that rumbled through the area all day Thursday.  Friday's forecast was supposed to be calm seas but the front had stalled some 100 miles off the coast and created nasty sea conditions all day Friday.  We set out at 4:00AM on Friday and tried to head north but the 20 knots winds coming out of the NE forced us to alter our course further south and we ended up in the Carteret Canyon.  We managed to put a nice 50lb yellow-fin tuna in the boat and some albacore tuna but no prize winners.  Saturday was finally a beautiful day with calm seas, however, the fish seemed to not be as hungry as they were the day before.  We had four separate chances at Blue Marlin, one of which was HUGE, but each marlin spit the hook shortly after they were on the line.  All in all, it was a fun tournament and I had a great crew and a good time was had by all.