Posted on June 5, 2020 Sturgeon provides a thrill Stanley and Dylan Purzyewski had a northern N.J. trolling thrill yesterday on their High Ambitions when they hooked the “big one” and sought it for half-hour before finding out thet they had hooked a12-foot sturgeon weighing hundreds of pounds. Though a fully protected species that’s actually quite common in Raritan Bay and the Hudson River. I’ve often seen several jump during the day while fishing in the bay. They feed on very small forage and are invariably snagged. They were very abundant during the early days of our country, but the value of their eggs as caviar resulted in their being all but wiped out by commercial fishermen. It was supposed to be calm this morning, but a cold southeast wind was blowing , and the ocean was choppy. As a result, the bunkers and large stripers that had been popping up off Ocean Couty were not showing today. Jerry Lasko still tried it at IBSP, but he and Maren Toleno only caught a couple of small blues blind casting poppers. Capt. Chris Di Stefano made the right choice as he joined Jimmy Herrick on the Navesink River as the crew limited on fluke with few shorts to work through — which is just the opposite of what Chris has found in Shark River, As noted in last night’s blog, Mark Roy had trolled mojos all day in Raritan Bay without a hit.. However he stuck with it after a tide change when the stripers came alive and the Release Me crew caught eight up to a 37 1/2-incher. The one striper Mark cleaned was spawned out. The Queen Mary from Point Pleasant reported only a pick of sea bass in the southeast wind after having had consistent action. Saturday looks better with southwest 5-10 knot winds and patchy fog before the usual afternoon showers and thunderstorms. The Golden Eagle from Belmar good sea bass fishing along with the best showing of ling in some time as some fares had up to 10.