It had been a steamy day on the water, but now only our chilled pint glasses were sweating as we raised them to celebrate the end of a successful day of fishing on an August afternoon. Collectively, we had achieved the Jersey “Grand Slam” – a fluke, striper, bluefish and weakfish. We soaked in the satisfaction of our accomplishment and took turns recalling nuances of the trip’s events.
Finding sea bass was easy, and we had many double-headers.
As the day grew shorter and the fish grew longer, one member of our group, an avid birdwatcher, began going off on what at first appeared to be a tangent. He told us about the marquee event in the birding world, known as the “World Series of Birding,” which takes place every May. On the day of the event, he explained, teams compete to see how many different species of birds they can spot. Before he even finished detailing the entire concept, our minds were already set into motion. What if we planned for a day of fishing with the specific intention of catching as many different species as we could? With that, we issued an open-ended challenge to ourselves to do just that, and we figured there is no better place to do it than in the waters of the New York Bight.
The initial plan was to get back out in September, but weather and work schedules kept us at bay. Finally, everything synched for us on Columbus Day, the second Monday in October. We arranged for our day on the water to be with Captain Allen Gonzalez, a seasoned pro who charters his Reel Class out of Point Pleasant, New Jersey. The Reel Class is a sturdy Albemarle 305 Express with a 31-foot length, an 11-foot beam, and powered by twin 300 Horsepower Caterpillar diesels – perfect for our group of six anglers.
Viva Variety
We broke the Manasquan Inlet at 6:30 a.m. to sunny skies and flat seas. The plan for the day was to start in the Mud Hole and work our way in, catching along the way. Our intention was to play catch-and-release for the most part, but we wanted to have the ability to keep some fish for the box. Bearing that in mind, if we were to keep a striped bass, we would need to have caught it while remaining within 3 miles of shore as per the regulations, so stripers would be targeted later in the day.
Flocks of working birds off Monmouth Beach led us to a large school of hungry bluefish.
We anchored up on the Lillian wreck and started “The Big Fish,” as we’d called our event, by bottom fishing. On one side of the boat, anglers bait fished with clams and squid, while anglers on the other side of the boat jigged. As Captain Allen fine-tuned our position, he gave the go ahead to drop down on the jigging side of the boat. Mindful that bluefin tuna had begun to make their fall appearance in the Mud Hole, we set our drags appropriately while our Crippled Herring and hammered diamond jigs made their passes through the 150-foot water column. Jigging over a wreck is best done by “yo-yo” jigging, in which you drop straight down, find the bottom, and lift the jig about 5 feet away from it. Cod would most likely be found tight to the bottom, while pollock, if the wreck had any early-season arrivals, would be above the cod. We had our first fish of the day before the bait side of the boat even got in the water – a nice 8- to 10-pound cod. For the next hour, we picked away at cod and ling, boxing a half-dozen fish and releasing the rest. Since bluefin and pollock were long shots, we made our first move of the day, a mere half-mile from where we had first set up.
A Very Mixed-Bag
We never did get a striped bass to add to the day’s list. Equally surprising but certainly acceptable was the lack of any dogfish over the entire day. We missed out on catching false albacore and bonito, although they had pretty much moved out by the beginning of October. Mahi, pollock, black drum, sheepshead and bluefin tuna were other potential species that evaded us. The final count for The Big Fish was 16 different species caught. They were:
1. Cod
2. Blowfish
3. Ling
4. Croaker
5. Black sea bass
6. Weakfish
7. Bluefish
8. Round scad
9. Fluke
10 Stargazer
11. Triggerfish
12. Bergall
13. Porgy
14. Sea robin
15. Tautog
16. Skate
There aren’t many places in the world where you can catch mahi and cod in the same waters, but the New York Bight is one of them! Just to the north of us was an abundance of lobster pots. We made drifts by their buoys and tossed a few handfuls of spearing in an effort to entice a bite, followed by our 1½-ounce white bucktails or rigged spearing tipped with squid strips. The water temperature was sufficient to hold mahi, and there were reports of them being caught there the previous day, but the water around the pots looked cloudy and green from a recent rain we’d had. We tried several areas, and even saw some pilot fish, but had no takers on the mahi front. Not wanting to invest too much time, we made a move to the Farms.
A stargazer caught on a piece of clam at the Sea Girt Reef.
The Farms are productive fishing grounds that were sure to add to our species tally. As soon as we came tight on the anchor and dropped down, we found a wealth of black sea bass, many times getting double and triple headers. When bottom fishing with a multi-hook rig, you can usually get that second fish by not reeling the first one in once you’ve hooked the first one. By leaving the first hooked fish down near the snag, you are allowing that fish to serve notice to other fish that something interesting is going on. As it was drop-and-reel sea bass fishing, we culled the ones we kept at 14 inches or larger. In addition to the bass, we added triggerfish and a croaker to our list. We also caught keeper-sized fluke and some bluefish, all on clams and bottom-fishing rigs!
This fluke was one of four species caught at the Farms.
Since the tautog seemed to be absent from the Farms, we headed to the Sea Girt Reef in search of better structure. Fishing in shallower water yet, we were immediately on top of dinner-plate-sized porgies and the occasional blackfish. While clams can prove to be an effective bait choice when targeting tog, even in the fall, green crabs are the preferred option. Green crabs can be presented in a variety of ways when blackfishing. My preference is to keep the piece of crab relatively small – no bigger than a quarter. I want to have at least two leg sockets on my bait so that I can thread the hook through one and out the other. The reasoning for the smaller bait is that the tog will be very near the hook when it starts scratching at the bait, and you are more likely to connect when you set the hook.
This blowfish was one of several wild-card fish we weren’t expecting to encounter.
The Sea Girt Reef was full of life and provided us with some wildcards – fish that weren’t even on our radar when we set out to catch a variety of species. At one point, we hooked a blowfish. Blowfish are certainly present in New Jersey, but are almost always found in bays and inlets, not a couple of miles offshore. We caught a stargazer on a clam. We also caught a juvenile round scad that we weren’t able to ID until we researched it later that night. We had begun to think about making a move when we saw a cloud of birds developing to the south of us. We quickly pulled anchor and made a dash toward the activity, along with a dozen or so other boats.
A quick stop at the Sea Girt Reef yielded this keeper blackfish.
The fall striper run hadn’t yet begun in New Jersey, although striped bass are certainly present throughout most of the year. We re-rigged with Ava 17s and 27s as we raced toward Monmouth Beach, where the birds were working. As we neared the bird action, Captain Allen cut the engines and we drifted into the fracas. We were getting marks on the fish finder but they were somewhat scattered. Between the 6 of us, we slung metal in all directions around the boat, letting the jigs reach the bottom and then working them back toward the boat. If stripers were around, they weren’t having any of it. Bluefish were abundant as they crashed on the jigs closer to the surface. The same appeared to be the case with all of the other boats around us. After giving it a go for 45 minutes, we decided to make a move to the last area that we would be fishing that day – Point Pleasant Beach to Bay Head.
The crew tries their luck casting to a lobster pot in hopes of hooking a mahi. There aren’t many places in the world where you can catch mahi and cod in the same waters, but the New York Bight is one of them!
For the week leading up to our trip, this 3- to 4-mile stretch right along the beach was paved with weakfish – certainly an encouraging sign considering the scarcity of weakies over the past few years. We dropped Ava 007’s down to the 20-foot depths, gently bounced them along the bottom and had hook-ups almost instantly. Most of the fish were on the small side, but we did keep a couple in the 16- to 18-inch range, still hoping that a striper would be in the mix.
The sun started gaining momentum toward the horizon and we knew that the time was near to wrap things up. Captain Allen and his mate, Michael Guarino, had certainly gone above and beyond to assist us in our quest to catch a variety of species, and they’d covered a lot of miles in doing so. As we made our way back to the marina, we passed through the Manasquan Inlet and toward Clark’s Landing. Dog Beach was to our right, and pet owners and bird-watchers alike were taking in the end of a beautiful day. Canine species splashed off-leash while avian species were busting a move south. And the final count of fish species was being tallied.
We vowed to make this a yearly event, and will be putting the word out to see if we can initiate some friendly competition next year as we sample the incredible potpourri of gamefish swimming in our waters.
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