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Captain's Focus

After postponing Mako Mania last weekend due to the weather forecast, the Greater Point Pleasant Charter Boat Association is faced with another tough call based on an ever-changing marine offshore forecast. Capt. Pete Grimbilas said the Mako Mania committee will make the call at 10 a.m. Friday. Check my daily blog at nj.com/shore/blogs/fishing, or visit their web site at www.gppchba.com. The captains meeting was held last Friday, but Mako Mania will once again have a table at the Manasquan River Club for additional sign-ups Friday from 5 to 7 p.m. -- though without last week's beer and food. The Jersey Coast Shark Anglers had to make an earlier decision on their Mako Fever Tournament that runs from Friday to Sunday. Their captains meeting will go on in any case at Hoffman's Marina West in Brielle at 6:30 Thursday as the beer and food was already ordered. The South Jersey Marina Shark Tournament at Cape May went on as planned last weekend, but results in rough conditions were relatively poor for the 90 boats that competed for a total of $317,069. There was nothing weighed the first day, but El Cid III brought in a 360-pound mako on Friday that stood up for both largest mako and largest fish plus first in the under 35-foot boat category and the Mako Mania pool to pocket over $96,000. Other big winners were Deb's Reel Jam with a 264-pound mako, and Thumbs Up with the largest blue shark of 235 pounds. Reel Games barely got over the 200-pound minimum for mako and blue sharks, but their 212-pound mako was entered in the Big Money Mako category that paid $110, 450 -- and they ended up with over $145,000. The numbers of sharks caught were well off the norm. There were only 12 makos brought in and 42 released for a total of 54 makos. In addition there were just 39 blues (all but two released), three browns, and two duskies recorded. Huge threshers usually win the largest fish category in this contest (up to 471 pounds last year),but there weren't any caught this year.  The Canyon Runner fleet at Point Pleasant moved to Cape May to be closer to the hot canyon trolling bite of yellowfin tuna after the good water in nearby canyons moved off, but the most standing catch on their overnighters was a huge 463-pound mako that broke the fleet's record of 367 pounds that had been set just the week before. The Jamaica from Brielle also set a record this week as Alice Omichi boated a 57 3/16-pound striped bass during a very slow bite on the Tuesday Magic Hours trip. That was the largest ever caught on that famed party boat.  Daytime striper fishing has been spotty, but small blues are being caught outside Manasquan Inlet and larger blues continue to be jigged offshore. The 61.42-pound striped bass reported in Wednesday's blog was actually caught off Fire Island Inlet , rather than Barnegat Inlet. I misunderstood the report from Tony Arcabascio of Bayville about the largest striper ever caught on his Tony Maja bunker spoons. The #4 multi-color did the job for Joe Mineo of Babylon, N.Y. Under orders from my wife, I'm finally cleaning out a half-century of fishing tackle from my basement and having a garage sale next Saturday, June 25 at 1552 Osprey Ct., Manasquan Park 08736.

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