Current Waters: “This Is Frickin' Jaws!”

Before all the wind that came in this week, the striper fishing had made a strong rebound with the cold water that the wind brought. I got out Wednesday afternoon and found the cold water still holding even after the majority of this week’s windy weather. It’s all promising for more striper fishing.

Leading up to this wind, the tuna fishing had been strong for recreational size fish. I’m hopeful that the wind we’ve been experiencing this week will help continue the trend.

Fluke fishing continues to be decent. They are scattered about. You’ll probably find them in your favorite fluke spot. Don’t have a favorite spot? Get out and enjoy the hunt.

Bluefish are strong. Bluefish of all sizes are around from sandwich size to gators. Perfect for the August Blues tournament.

I have yet to see a bonito myself this season. It’s true that I haven’t targeted them yet, but I’ve heard of some being caught around. Someone is putting in the work and reaping the rewards. Check out the tournament update below.

The first false albacore was caught on Wednesday by Captain Lynn Heyer. And it was her birthday no less! Congratulations!

The August Blues fishing tournament is still going strong. See the link for all the leaderboard updates. Highlights this week include the Junior winner for the first bonito of the tournament. 11 year old Dylan McCartin caught his bonito from the beach at Great Point. He’s also not shy about sharing his secrets. He used an epoxy minnow to land his fish. The leaderboard is still wide open for first false albacore for all divisions. There is still plenty of time to join the tournament. There are weekly winners as well as the bigger categories. So many great prizes!

We had an exciting moment on Topspin this week while striper fishing. First of all, the striper fishing was epic. But things got really exciting when one of the rods doubled over. There was a lot more attitude to this bite than the stripers we’d been catching all morning. That wasn’t a striper on the line. We had hooked something MUCH larger. What came next was a little bit of a battle. Not quite the old man and the sea, but our anglers took turns reeling it in to get the feel of it on the line. What was it? Well, we had a fun time guessing as we got it closer to the boat. Now we had to get it to the boat to end the speculation. What was that fish?! We had to maneuver the boat and keep reeling. As it finally got close enough to see a murky shape in the water, it was pretty exciting to see what we were reeling in. We actually had a Great White Shark! We got some great views of it even if the pictures and video don’t do it justice. It looked to be about 7 feet long. No, you can’t actually fish for Great Whites, a protected species, and we needed to be able to get the hook out to let it on its way. But as soon as it came near the side of the boat it took off again with the line screaming. In the video we captured, you can hear our client, “This is frickin' jaws!” followed by “Oh my gosh!” uttered by 7 year-old Skip. After more reeling we finally got it to the stern of the boat and saw that is was hooked in the pectoral fin. We got a few good looks at it and then it was off. That is surely a trip we won’t soon forget. This was especially true for our seven year old angler, Skip, whose first time it was on a boat! I don’t know how he’s going to top that.

So, how did we end up with a great white by accident? Well, I suspect that the shark was actually going in for a striper that was going for our lure. The striper got away but the shark was hooked. Timing is everything with fishing and no one planned to hook a pec fin.