September 12th, 2024 New Jersey/Delaware Bay Fishing Report with Jim Hutchinson, Jr.

hellmaster ex this award-winning system features the first single engine joystick with digital electric steering and new autopilot capability see hmaster EX in action at a Yamaha outboard dealer or visit Yamaha outboards tocom the fishing news is sponsored by These Fine Partners it's Thursday September 12th 2024 I'm Jim Hutchinson with the fisherman magazine and we kick off this week's video fishing forecast for the New Jersey Delaware Bay Region by honoring those men and women who lost their lives 23 years ago this week on the 911 attack on the United States New York City of course the Pentagon down in Arlington outside of uh Washington DC and uh the brave Americans who fought back in that jetliner high in the sky above Somerset County in Pennsylvania we all remember where we were I certainly do it's as Vivid in my head as what I had for breakfast this morning we also know how it affected us but a rather poignant post that was made on Wednesday September 11th this week at the fisherman's uh Facebook page is a clear reminder of how the local boating and fishing Community here in the Northeast in the New York New Jersey region in particular became involved in the rescue efforts uh the largest boat lift in the world ever um as half a million people were evacuated from Lower Manhattan in just about 9 hours with the help of about 150 different vessels and 800 Mariners many of them friends of ours folks that we knew and know uh in the the lower Hudson area to the brave firefighters and First Responders whose lives were lost at the Trade Center to those whose family and friends were lost during the attack and of course those Patriots the heroes on board United Airlines Flight 93 over Stony Creek Township Shanksville in Pennsylvania you will always always be remembered in our hearts and souls that was September 11th today is the 12th and that's 12 days now from now until the end of the summer flounder season in New Jersey September 25th we have that much time to fire up the vacuum sealer and see how many freezer uh how many uh filets we can St in the freezer for winter sandwiches if you will the final curtain comes down in 12 days yes ocean wrecks and reaps the deeper waters predominantly the areas you want to Target heading into this weekend for some of those fluke be it the headboats the charter boats or on your own boat and there's plenty of options now that the summer is over if you want to take advantage of some of those headboats to to get out there and work the reef structure you let the captains deal with where to set the drift let the mates figure figure out how to get you UNS snagged you sit back and fish take advantage of that but you do want to hit a few of those Keepers those keeper locations on the wreck and snags of course out along the open beaches that's not the only place uh that you're going to catch fluke at this time of year of course I heard from Scotty from grumpies this week a 24 in 5.45 pounder and an 18in 2.9 pounder this week caught live lining spot in the Manasquan River how many times have folks live line spot in the past 40 years in the Manasquan river that population of small panfish has spread out throughout the Garden State and definitely the larger fluke are geared into those fish those spot those tasty little Delectables that are out there look I know that Gulp and fish bites are fluke Killers dressing your bucktails and Jigs and and putting a Big Gulp grub or fight club on the teaser but if you're looking for sizable catches right now uh in the rivers and Bays I do think that meat is Magic and peanut bunker and lifes spot in particular are good directions to to to take at this point now you if you want to get your own bait you can ALS always anchor up couple of logs of clam Chum uh put down those smaller high low rigs with little bits and pieces of the fish bites the bag of worms those strips are great clams are great like I said blood worms are great um I have a some buddies in my neighborhood here uh one catches spots specifically for live lining for blin and the other one's catching spots specifically for fluke so they invade each other's pens because my tuna buddy will drop all the small ones in the fluke Buddy's pen and he'll take all the big ones out it's great relationship these are the kind of things that you want to do but I'll tell you uh these cape made goodies that are available right now you can use a saiki rig some folks are just using the siki rig right off the bulkheads and docks my thanks to Alan Gonzalez for providing us our spot in image of the week caught right before he had to get back to school hope you're enjoying the classroom Allan um I've been messing around out back checking water temperatures uh in the last couple of weeks just to see where we are around those sod Banks and Creek mounts uh for throwing some of those top waterers uh like do the the tsunami IOP popper the coastal IOP popper you got one of these with your subscription to the fisherman magazine during the the winter show season um it's still warm though I was on the outgoing top uh just about 2 hours into the outgoing tile on Tuesday we're still registering around 7 73° uh so hopefully a few more cooler nights uh in the next week to two weeks certainly by the end of September early October at the latest the water temperatures will drop down five or six more degrees and I'll be able to throw those plugs out there along the uh along the side Banks and I hope you two as well from the naving to the barnegate absin Great Bay is fantastic and Tucker in Bay all all the way down into Lam and all those areas back behind the beaches in Cape May County I've got my C sentury weapon uh mag Jun new pen battle spooled with 20 lb braid uh uh 20 lb tsunami fluo on the end of that with a dual lock or a tactical angler clip that's about all I'm doing for a lot of my prospecting it's become my go-to uh outfit for the Back Bay um in terms of clipping on one of these tsunamis or maybe a Yori 3D in Shore popper I'm using them uh using that same Outlet uh outfit just take off the popper might put down a tog jig working under the bridge structure and with those fluke as well uh I mention a lot of the Season I'm just living on gulping fish bites but uh I've been just I I'm struggling of course I'm one of those folks now that I don't want the live bait I want to go on artificial I've been throwing these um uh Power baits these power bait saltwater shads on a jig head and having a lot of fun it's a little spro jig head because again I'm finding those fluke on the big baits so if you want to do some artificial action you know go to the larger uh baits at this point the bigger profiles casting around the edges and dropping them down I have a lot more to to focus on I'm not just vertical jigging now I'm casting it out on the flats and bringing it back around as I drift along the edge but again if you're looking for fluke this weekend I do I really do think that if you're looking to score uh meat is the way to go the second week of September the NFL season is upon us Major League Baseball debates are raging now among the New York and Philadelphia fans uh it's all good fun uh we go back and forth it's all fun it's not like a presidential debate mind you uh but I know my fondness for the Phillies and the Eagles uh sometimes can be somewhat triggering uh to folks especially north of the Driscoll bridge I grew up in South Jersey what do you want from me um well on this week's Open Boat this is for you uh Jenny runs down a few of her favorite ninth inning fluke tips while showing her own part and loyalties worthy perhaps of A Bronx cheer or two all right it's the bottom of the ninth inning here for the 2024 fluke season and I'm going to give you guys some close out season tips on who you should have in your starting lineup for bait options sometimes the artificials aren't working especially towards the end of the season when the waters are getting a little bit colder but that doesn't mean you can hang up the towel on the fluke season finish the season strong with these bait options starting off with an absolute home run of a bait we have the peanut bunker now a lot of the local lagoons are getting stacked up with peanut bunker right now as they make their way out to the front for the Fall Run as we have a mix of bait that will migrate out there so you can get peanut bunker by cast netting either Behind The Bays or are back in people's lagoons or if your local Tackle Shop sells them you're a lucky duck definitely grab some peanut bunker if and when you can and that's a good option for door mat fluke towards the end of the season next up we have a little bit of a curve ball here that's going to hit a home run is the mullet striped mullet specifically going back to the fluke bite on mullet they are an excellent bait and like I said you can get them cast netting out front or you can get them from your local tackle shops and use them you can either use them whole or you can strip them and late season fluke absolutely crush the mullet like Aaron judge hitting a home run these are an excellent bait option for you and last but not least is one of my favorite baits to be caught the good old spot or the Lafayette this is definitely a base stealing bait now the spot can be caught on a siki rig with a little fish bites bloodworm imitator and you can triple up you can double up whatever I like to cut my siki rig so I don't have to deal with that many hooks but you can double up on spot and just have fun catching the spot on its own but a lot of times in the late season when you're fillet in a door mat fluke and you cut open its belly You'll See Spot in there so take note definitely give yourself a little pitch count before the season ends so cuz you still have time to go out there and wipe your feet on a doorm now I hope you guys have an excellent close out to the 2024 fluke season definitely make it count I know it hasn't been the best but what's a finicky fluke bite without all the factors that go into it so you got to work hard put your time in make these last couple of weeks count and wipe your feet on some door mats stay tuned I'll see you guys on next week's Open Boat no is the best time to buy a boat at the Jersey Shore boat sale and Expo fishing boats for England and offshore tons of center consoles September 27th through 29th short toown ballpark home of the Jersey Shore blue claws tickets at Jersey boo expo.com is with the [Music] I mentioned blue fin a little earlier those live line spots I know folks are catching them drifted chunks uh trolling the wide trackers we're jigging it's uh been a good midshore season thus far and it should Carry On Through the next month two months and really it it carries over all the way into December uh know Jimmy Freda talks about that all the time he frequently writes articles holiday blue fin that goes into our December Edition so hopefully all this great Bluefin action will continue to provide us all with thick steaks modestly grilled no more than 30 seconds aside on the outdoor barbecue grill what I like to do is a little bit of olive oil and sesame oil on those uh on those filets on those steaks and then I coat it with everything but the bagel seasoning you can get that most stores because a lot of folks use pepper a lot of folks use sesame the everything the everything bagel is the best and if you can get that everything uh uh but the bagel seasoning simple straightforward out on the grill uh or you can also sear it in the pan but it all starts with the windows of opportunity and being geared up to actually catch tuna well we just added a new video on our YouTube page you may want to check it out it features tuna jigging south of Block Island on the North Coast 415 HT not only great fishing but you get to view this Beast of a fishing machine powered by CLA Yamahas four Yamahas four Yamahas with sync my little center console just click on the card at the top of the screen there and check out that video with Matt Brer and get a little bit more detail in jigging tuna congrats by the way to my man Silas mazis who landed his very first blue fin tuna last week a 36 incher on the troll first light out of Holiday Harbor Marina in wtown out barnegate Inlet dad Steven said they were on the inshore bite bloody well done Silas bloody well done weatherwise it looks like summer is over by the fact that there's not a lick of south wind in the forecast heading into this weekend inshore Nearshore and mid-range though looks fantastic light easterly's in the Noah marine forecast midweek that's through Sunday sees mostly two to three offshore from the Hudson to Baltimore also looks good in terms of the midweek forecast from Noah uh you have those yellow fin offshore right now and I spoke to Tom P at um uh Creekside Outfitters racken fin radio he does our offshore column uh he's going to have some long fin reports real true albore reports in this week's offshore report it'll be posted next week um but he's already making calls to find out what's going on so it's it sounds like the long fin uh bite is starting to materialize now as well which is a good sign as we get into to the September and October chunking you chunk overnight for yellow fin maybe swordfish do some uh uh albacore trolling at first light you're in by noon cleaning fish water temperatures are getting warmer they're still keeping the Exotics around I heard from Mike martello this week he's had a fun season on his Sea Eagle fast cat 12 spending most every weekend drifting through the inlets and back Bays from corson's down to Harford Inlet as far as the fishing the action he says has been con constant all summer long but of course more quantity over quality he says like everybody else the 24 may go down as the season of the 17 1 12 in summer flounder just a little short anyway while Mike was drifting over some deep Cuts in dung thoroughfare the other day never heard of it this fish is he pulled up this pig fish a grunt another summer odity here at the Jersey shores Mike said the ad is true nothing says no to fish bites for more than 20 years Anglers everywhere have come to know one thing that nothing says no to Fish Bites Tyler cero says he's back to school but it's not stopping him from catching fish every time he can get out of school said more quality Bonita and a few Spanish mackerel in the mix though he still hasn't gotten on that false albore on the jetty rocks just yet but they're here especially in the upper half of the Garden State more into Jetty country obviously above uh LBI and all the way into Sandy Hook I think that Sandy Hook that Sandy Hook stretch is probably your best opportunity Albi allei is what Allen Riley used to call it and yes those tasty Spanish mackerel are also in the mix taking the tins and the the Albi snacks and those smaller Metals uh along those quiet badgeless beaches Dr Adam aguar from Stockton let me know that he bumped into emry Rilo who showed off this hard tale a Spanish mackerel caught on a tin in the Seaside area just the other day those hard tails the albz the bones and the Spanish mackerel they could play a big part in the final outcome this season in the fisherman Magazine's Coastal kayak Clash New Jersey's Bob Wagner has gotten himself to within one point of New England's Justin ozer just as we talked about a few weeks back so let's head back to our virtual studios for a look at the CKC and maybe a Dreamboat Fishing Challenge update as well and now the Dreamboat Fishing Challenge entries for the week we had only one entry in from New England subscriber John Moria from Hudson Massachusetts with a porgi weighing in at 2.8 lb at Red Top Sporting Goods placing him second in the scuff division the standings once again took a point dip for second and third Scott Waterman with 17 points Brian zesi with 12 points Anthony Savino with 10 points the full run is on so fish hard there's plenty of time to enter your fish to win a stiger craft powered by Yamaha and many other great prizes but you must be a fisherman subscriber to enter look for Miss Jenny arriman on the cover of the September edition of the fisherman magazine in news stands and tackle shops right now we're fluking down the home stretch with Captain Scott New Hall slow pitch jigan by kayak with Lawrence Thompson fishing the Mullet Run with Phil Field editor Nick hanesy we're right on target this is the time to start looking for those vwes down the open beaches we're prepping for the fall striper run with Nicholas simoli and a feature on September River bass Largemouth and Smallmouth by Bruce lton in the glossy section recently retired Mammoth University professor John tan provides an update on various research techniques for studying strip bass well Chuck Manny offers a personal perspective of the striper migration based on his own observations and our striper tagging work with the Northeast stripe bass study there's also a rod bench feature from Matt brck a resident Rod building Guru is talking about how to build your own lightweight surf strike uh uh surf stick uh there's a cool photo feature and how to on using Spooks on stripers by the dado boys and finally a great tuna chunking piece from Captain John ruso which of course as we mentioned we're here in Prime Time tuna tuna chunking season at the edge at the J Jersey Shore subscribers you can get full digital e access every week to the monthly the weeklys all the howtos there's not tying atth fisherman.com if you don't have a subscription at some point the window comes shut and it says you don't get any more articles this month my friend so you got to pay the $29.95 for the year and get all the access you'll also get to see those boys from grumpies uh on the cover of this week's edition who apparently are spending more time out fluke fishing uh than they are uh managing the shop of course their hours go Uber Hours come the fall run so you can expect them sneaking out there every once in a while um there are four features this week in the digital weekly Edition Jeff Sullivan surf piece on the nlbn um uh kale Matt brck talks peanut bunker uh fluke in these Final hours peanut bunker netting some of those putting them in the live well again I said it's all about the meat right now uh targeting tiger trout this fall with Captain uh Scott neall who spends a lot of his time trout fishing when he's not out running up and down the beach looking for fluke and also appropriate for this time of year uh fly fishing for albz with Mark sedat you can get all the details on that at the fisherman if you're not getting access to any of those articles it means your username and password is not being registered and that may mean you're not a subscriber so make sure that you subscribe that's the best I can offer you can do it next week or two weeks from now at the New Jersey boat sale and Expo the Jersey Shore boat sale and Expo that's out in Lakewood the fisherman magazine will be there and we will be giving away one of these beautiful little tsunami ipop poppers we have the larger ones and the smaller ones smaller ones I love the smaller ones for faad Banks I'll tell you more about that in a few minutes my hummingbirds haven't been to feed at the Hummingbird feeder in about 2 weeks it's a good sign those cooler nights have prompted them to depart South for the season leaves are falling at this point just like the temperature temperature should soon as well with that let's head out to the mountains check in with my friend George shower our Pocono outdoors guy well hey thanks Jim some Breezy weather here on the lake but the conditions are absolutely perfect to out and do a little fishing uh we have a couple check-ins around the area guys telling us what's biting so we'll give you a flavor of what's hitting around the area first Chris matches checked in from South Jersey uh again he's been out on that crappie bite the past few weeks and being real successful got another 16inch crappie here uh he said he's working those 2-in twister tails and that's been producing real good for him so fall is always crappy season guys be sure you get out and try some of that now on the Delaware River Eric fistler well you know him from that big Shad tournament in the spring Eric was out uh fishing some suckers and he managed to hook into a big uh big big old flathead catfish and that's a first for him that was his first catfish he doesn't normally fish for him but it's a great prize nonetheless I'd certainly be happy getting a hold of one of them myself now our own Jenny auran well she drifted a little too far west and ended up in my neck of the woods up around Toby H now Jenny was H out pitching a uh a Ned rig and managed to get herself a couple of real nice large mouth for her efforts so always a great little thing they're getting large mouth this time of year especially on a Ned rig a great allaround bait any time of year I think Jenny could probably work a a rain puddle and get in some fish she's really good at that also around the area guys some other things going on uh we we took a look at um this the striper bite over here uh you look at the bigger lakes and we've been talking about Beltsville I was talking about W and pomac we had our our friend and guide Josh Taylor uh he said the stripers are just out schooling up bait they're feeding really heavy getting ready for a really good fall bite here in the Poconos also the same deal up on W and pomp pack we had will grouper uh he's been doing the same thing uh live baiting some Aly and getting some great stripers too so a good bite up there now one more thing before we go a great story of my good friend and Semi-Pro Nick kestra he was out doing a little bass fishing there in south central Pennsylvania and he managed to uh get bass and all of a sudden he said he got into a big old musky he said it's all funding games until the musky uh hits your ChatterBait and I'll tell you what that's not a bad deal right there I always good to get the musky they're just so hard we have such trouble getting into them only caught a few of my life but want to get back out for them but I'll tell you what hitting your bass bait that's a whole different story had something similar happened to me several years ago but we'll save that story for another episode guys having some great weather this week and I think again it's going to be ideal to get out win a line be sure you get it home but from Pennsylvania I'm George your poking outdoors guy get ready for the ultimate power boating experience at the Annapolis powerboat show explore the latest models gear and accessories fun for the whole family with live demos expert advice and more your Adventure Starts Here very soft tip so when the black fish is biting that Blackfish hit on a very subtle bite it a small bite it scratch scratch scratch that fish hit so with a stiffer Rod a stiffer spinning rod we can say I won't really feel that and I'll miss the fish sometimes you can get it sometimes you can't but with this this Rod I could feel every single little bite and also with this reel it's a fastaction powered reel so I can get the fish out of the rocks out of the structure very fast and it has a drag to handle the fish point my man Pedro IL defonso sharp as attack this young man giving his first ever Blackfish seminar recently offers good advice for folks looking to give terer aagen a shot this week Cog jig with a greeny fiddler Asian shore crab uh and of course maybe a few of those sheep's heads still around in the southern part of the state around Atlantic and Cap May County as well yeah you still have those opportunities for sheep head that season continues and like I said with the water temperatures that I registered in the Back Bay 73 73 degrees when our water temperatures in the 70s you're not going to have a lot of those sheeps head skipping out of town anytime soon and hopefully we're going to lead into some speckled trout as well because September October November that's about the season the time frame when I start hearing from the guys in South Jersey Kate May County especially on the speckled trout run we'll see what kind of run we get this this particular year this Saturday out at Island Beach State Park you've got the 28th Annual New Jersey beach buggy Association children's fishing tournament you can get details on page nine September edition of the fisherman magazine that uh uh calendar of events but registration gets underway 7:30 a.m. on Saturday in the swimming area I am finalizing the October edition of the fisherman magazine it's kept me at my desk uh but that's coming out in about two weeks if your club or organization has an event coming up in October a tournament perhaps you want to get it in the pages of the fisherman magazine October you got to get in touch with me this week deadlines are moving fast and furious but email me Jay Hutchinson atth fisherman.com I'll get that information into the print edition of the fisherman magazine now I mentioned in last week's video fishing forecast the New Jersey marine fisheries council meeting last Thursday in Galloway I was there uh along with a a handful of other masochists like myself trying to sort out uh some of the management stuff that's coming our way I left a tad early but I did gather a bunch of notes uh so we'll see if we can kind of quick cover what happened at that New Jersey marine fisheries Council uh what I can glom out of that first of all uh targeted uh uh Catch and Release shark fishing on the beach for prohibited Federal species like sandb bars and sand tigers was brought up it's something that I editorialized uh several months ago Scotty from Grumpy's tackle sent a letter into the council it came up in discussions although the state official responsible for marine fisheries Joe simino uh he said quote IPR exess great concern about this yeah I express great concern about not working harder within the bureaucracy to open up new angling Avenues of opportunity in New Jersey when given the chance all right uh like speckled trout for example we've been talking about this for five years we still have not broken speckled trout out of the same category of as weakfish in 5 years but I digress Council will convene uh their their shark committee uh at some point to discuss how uh or if it's possible uh to have a coordinated targeted Catch and Release shark fishery on prohibited species maybe through uh Outreach possibly workshops that's down the road uh also down the road uh again we found out that speckled trout regulations it still has to go through the Legal Eagles uh to figure out how to separate these two species 5 years to break the two Fisheries apart uh that that that that's what should be of your concern Joe personally that's what I think uh the council committees are working to establish a survey to figure out how the state of New Jersey might be able to separate uh individual areas of the state into different regions inshore offshore uh Back Bay North Jersey South Jersey you know it always comes up every year uh the different um um Anglers uh in different regions always want something different from the Fluker regulations it's one thing from this from the the the northern part of the State versus down on Delaware Bay the Back Bay guys who fish llam and Great Bay W something different from the folks that want to go out Reef hunting this later time of year um but what I'm told is uh there's a there's a survey that the state is going to work on the council members are going to work on to try to uh perhaps develop different Regional reg regulations for summer flounder based on where you're actually fishing as soon as that information becomes available I think Elanor banck council member is working on that look forward to working with the state to try to get that uh that survey out uh also the two missing Council seats um they're just waiting for the New Jersey senate to get back into session they're enjoy they've been enjoying their summer recess but those two names those two potential appointments Greg Huth from the party boat Mo uh big mohawk he's um he's in a senate committee waiting for confirmation uh to be the angler rep and I mentioned John tan before he would be the candidate for that a llarge seat so we are closer to being uh full Council representation at this point it's something that I've been hammering over the last five or six years yeah Joe it's a big concern to me my friend uh but hopefully when the Senate gets back uh we will get some good news on those two missing Council seats finally the enforcement report a new recruit has been added to the northern Mammoth region that brings us to a total of 11 enforcement officers uh in in the state of New Jersey uh Wolly love if you ask me but maybe someday that bloated Department of Environmental Protection budget can shake a few shekel free for our Marine Division uh which honestly all the coastal fishing tourism brings vast amounts of tax dollars back into the into the state coffers in Trent you would think you'd be able to shake a few more dollars free to get some more Enforcement Officers anyway Captain Brian Scott presented our enforcement uh update last Thursday I imagine we'll hear more from him uh because word is is that uh deputy chief Jason Snell Baker is retiring so if you're watching deputy chief snellbaker I'd personally like to thank you for your service and your cander I appreciate the work that you've done over the years in two weeks we will have the Jersey Shore boat sale and Expo I mentioned it before because at that event at Lakewood uh Jersey Shore Blue Claw stadium in Lakewood we will be giving away away a tsunami IOP uh popper if you get your new or renewing subscription to the fisherman magazine that is going to be Friday Saturday and Sunday uh September 27th through the 29th the night before Thursday the 26th I will be out at the Huntington Hilton for the fisherman magazine show that's an inshore offshore surf show Huntington Hilton September 26th lock it in I'll have more details for you next week you can find more details in the September Edition but I'll be there Jenny's going to be there uh New England editor Dave Anderson is going to be there and of course Long Island Matt brck will be there as well we've got a whole cast of characters uh that are going to be there presenting seminars including Crazy Al Berto KN fresh up from Florida coming in to talk surf stripers have more details on that more events next week I hope to see you out there on the beach this weekend looking for some late doormat late season doormats in the wash and some of those hard Tales I'm looking forward to the first opportunity to miss with false albacore blitzing along the the surf catch them up this week have a great one [Music] [Music]