Sunday:  Had the Sal Guarino charter on board today consisting of Sal, Jason, Alex, Mike, and Joey. The guys wanted to tog all day and finish up looking for some fish to jig.  Ran north, pounding our way up the beach with that stiff NNE wind. Seas were nice till we got up past Long Branch then they started getting a little steep with the wind against tide. Whatever the case, we set up on some rough stuff off Monmouth Beach and got a slow pick of mostly shorts with a few keepers mixed in. Lots of bergall bites as well.

By 10 the seas laid down nice, but we were tired of playing with the small fish so we made a few drops in deeper water (45-50') out to the east and on the SH reef - just more shorts with 1 or 2 more keepers mixed in. By 11 I decided to try even deeper, so we moved out to some rough stuff in 60-70' and got a slow pick going with bigger tog. These were mostly keeper fish, and we had a couple in the 4-6# class boated as well as a real nice ling by Alex. These fish would bite real scratchy - we would get a nice flurry going then it'd just shut off, so we made a few wiggles and got a couple more.

By 2:30 the guys had enough of toggin' so we headed south looking for some jiggable fish. We finally found some life after running 10+ miles back towards our inlet and had some crazy readings right on the bottom - nothing but a mess of big gators and a few dogfish - no bass!

Called it a day at 4. We wound up boating ~40 tog, with only 18 of them being legal. Had a few nice ones in the box, topped by a pair of nice 5-6#ers taken by Jason and Sal respectively, as well as 1 ling and a mess of bluefish. A solid day but the fishing can be best described as just a pick.

11/21:  Had the Jim Hart charter onboard today consisting of Jim, Bruce and his son Brandon, and their buddy Joe - Joey A filled in the last spot as Jim had an angler drop out last night.

Ran south to where we caught them yesterday. A close tight chop from the south with an occasional close 3-4' swell made it a little lumpy going south. First drop on some great marks yielded an almost instand just under 28" bass, followed by a couple of doggies. Ran around the same area we caught yesterday, and found loads of great readings, but nothing biting outside of dogfish and the occasional bluefish.

Decided to run back north, and joined the fleet that was working a wide area from Lavalette up to Mantoloking about 1.5 miles off. No birds, but more great readings, only thing was these fish were biting. Mostly bluefish, but an occasional bass to spice up the action. If you left the jigs on the bottom, it was spiny city. Every drift we picked several bluefish, and had a couple real good shots at bass.

Once the wind started SCREAMING from the west we had a hard time working the area, but still continued to pick. By around 2 we ran in on the beach for a look - found nothing. We did find some birds working right outside our inlet - more jumbo bluefish.

Overall we had a slow but steady pick all day long, with the slowest action early in the morning. We wound up with ~40-50 bluefish, as well as 7 keeper bass to 15#; we also had a handful of short bass, and a LOAD of spiny dogfish. Joey also jigged up a 13" tog on a 67! Great crew today, Joey is always a pleasure on the boat and he was ON FIRE today w/ the bass; Brandon also nailed a nice keeper at the end of the day. Thanks for coming down today guys!!

11/20:  Had the Steve Hamby charter on with Steve, Ray, Gus, Bob, and Roger.  Ran south, lots of bunker in close off Bay Head/Mantoloking with about 75 boats zipping through them like it was Mid-May.  We then ran offshore, saw some bluefin porpoising on sandeels, then started to run south where they got them yesterday. On the way more bluefins were spotted, well within the 3 mile line, crashing and blowing up on sandeels - great site!

Got down and fished the stretch from the piers to IBSP and had a good amount of bird life with some excellent readings. Had fish on right away, mostly blues to start, but got the bass going after a little bit. Most of the bass were keepers, and the were just a tad under 28".

Mid-Morning, Steve nailed a beautiful 43" that was around 25#. By noontime the 5 man charter had boxed up their limit of 10 stripers, as well as a boat load of blues. Running north to do some toggin', a load of birds were spotted and this time, the guys got covered up with some real gator blues to almost 15# - at times there were 4-5 fish on.

Finished the up the day doing some toggin' on a rockpile - the bite was very slow but we managed about a half dozen to 6#.
All in all an excellent day - the crew boated around 20 stripers, keeping the 5 man limit of 10, and around 75 bluefish as well as the tog. Also, several spiny dogfish were boated. These guys are a great crew and its always a blast having them on the boat!!