At the time of this report the captains of the Beach Haven Charter Fishing Association are heaving a sigh of relief as it appears Hurricane Matthew will spare the New Jersey coastline. At the same time, they are keeping their fingers crossed for the safety of the fishing communities and other folks along the southeastern coastline absorbing the brunt of the storm.

 

Although tropical storms have as yet not had any appreciable effect on the Beach Haven fishery, a steady diet of strong northeast winds have been enough to put a damper on most local fishing. Despite these less than ideal weather conditions, the BHCFA captains have plans and some very viable fishing options coming up in the very near future.

 

First, the water temperatures remain quite warm, and this has kept a goodly amount of fish around the inshore waters along with some large quantities of bait. The inshore bay waters continue to hold large numbers of small fish such as black sea bass, kingfish, blowfish, porgies, and the like. In addition, there have been various catches of nice sized weakfish and occasional resident striped bass beginning to show their presence.

 

The black sea bass season re-opens on October 22 with a daily limit of 15 fish with some decent numbers of big fish on the artificial reefs and inshore wrecks. Between these sea bass, some big porgies, and blackfish, the bottom fishing will be seeing a big upswing in the very near future. The offshore fishery is a question mark right now. When boats were able to make the trip to the canyons, there were some tuna, billfish, and mahi-mahi to be found. Since the unfriendly seas have made recent trips a no-go, captains will have to take a wait and see attitude. However, it is still early in the season, and there is no reason for there not to be fish available.

 

Finally, now that we are enjoying cool evenings, the striped bass and big bluefish will be arriving shortly from the north. There have been good reports on bass from the waters off Montauk, and with the goodly amount of bait to be found in our waters, this promises to be a good fall for stripers.