Friday 7/1 FTYP Trip: Had our second FTYP marathon trip today. Left the dock just after 630 with Cool hand Al, Bill P, Ryan H, Lenny, Chuck, and Fred. Again ran north. Lots of life out there this morning as some terns were working over some small bluefish on the ride up.

Cool temps, a brisk NNW breeze of around 10 kts made for good drifting conditions early. Started in close off Deal, just a few shorts, then went off, and got more shorts. In close, the water was FILTHY however once we got off the beach, the water cleaned up however the N current picked up quite a bit and we were drifting at over 2 kts. We finally found some fish on a hill/clam bed and had a slow pick of mostly short fluke and a few seabass.

After a few drifts, that dried up, so we tried another high spot - nada. Did one drift in on the rocks in 40' of water, and had a painfully slow pick of smaller seabass. Even though there was less current, there were less bites.

So we then went further north and finally found a few keeper fluke, a few more keeper seabass. Once we got up that way we had good drifting conditions, and we started catching, but as soon as the bite picked up, the drift died, and power drifting yielded just a handful of bites.

Headed for home at 330 with 6-7 keeper fluke and about a dozen keeper seabass (I didn't get an exact count today - SORRY). We had maybe 2 dozen short fluke, and a bunch of short seabass. Overall it was a slow pick at best all day long, but everyone went home with a nice bag of fillets. Great crew, I will be seeing most of them later this summer for another shot at the flatties. 

Saturday 7/3 Half-Day Bottom Trip:   Had the Brett Diamond charter, consisting of Bret, 12 year old Joaquim and his GREAT grandfather Lee (both from San Jose, CA) aboard for a half day bottom fishing trip. The plan was to get some fish for a couple of weekend barbecues and we had a window of 7-11AM to get these guys their fish.

Went back to where we caught them Thursday and found some slightly difficult conditions with a W wind against a N current - we weren't sitting right on the hook but we were able to get some bites after a couple shifts and put a few nice seabass in the box. I took a few minutes, dropped a hi-lo in w/ some strings and nailed a beautiful 6# blackfish that of course was released unharmed. Brett also nailed another nice July codfish before we moved to another drop.

The next 2 drops we sat on the anchor and we continued to pick away at seabass and another nice blackfish, but the wind flopped out, and we went on the drift.

Fished 3 more pieces and they all had some life, but the third provided some pretty quick action with bigger seabass to 2#.   We finished the day at 1115 with about 30 seabass in the box to 2#, along with the cod and the blackfish (which were released). Another good morning of bottom fishing locally for a great crew!

Monday 7/5 River Fluke:  Did a quick half-day trip in my old stomping grounds in the river on Monday...  Light tackle was the name of the game and we were able to jig up a half dozen nice fluke to 21" plus some shorts on gulps/leadheads! 

All Pics are in the Gallery!