Striped Bass Fishing Tips:

The current New Jersey Striped Bass regulations are 2 fish @ 28" or greater per angler. No closed season from 0-3 miles from shore.

We usually start out clamming for spring Stripers and then as soon as the bunker arrive, we will switch over to chunking. Sometimes we troll Stretch 25's on braided line throughout the bay which can be productive too. Last spring, trolling the 25's was very productive along the Reach. Chunking bunker is a great way to catch Stripers and everyone gets to participate. In the fall, we fish for Stripers using eels as bait while drifting area such as the "Rip" at the tip of Sandy Hook, Sandy Hook Channel and other "striper hangouts" stored on my GPS..

Tips:

1- "Chunking" To catch the really big Stripers, our bait of choice are "bunker heads", using the remainder of the fish cut into small chunks for chunking. Discard the tails! To catch "fresh" bunker, our most effective way is to throw a cast net. Our 10' Calusa net sinks really fast in waters up to 10 feet. One good cast and you have enough bunker for a full days trip and more. We will also throw a weighted treble hook and "snag" bunker too. We like to hook the bait (head) through the gill plate so that the head lays facing an oncoming Striper. Remember, Stripers swallow the bait head first as they don't have teeth and can swallow the head for an easy pickup. We use a 24" long leader tied to a 6/0 to 9/0 circle hook on a fishfinder rig and cast the head away from the stern of the boat and fish our reels in "free spool" and the clicker on until pickup.

3- "Clamming" is also another very successful way to catch Stripers. A bushel bag of "sea clams" is usually enough for a 4 man trip for a couple of hours. Anchor up around clam beds or wherever you "mark" fish and chum using cracked clams as bait. Put 4 - 5 clams in a bucket and break them up with a hard object (baseball bat) and then add some sea water to make a soupy mixture. Then disperse this mixture in the water around the boat....works great. Shuck another clam for your hook making sure you impale the clam on the hook securely through the belly first and then through the tongue of the clam. We make it a habit of using 24" long leaders with a fishfinder rig and cast the clam bait away from the stern of the boat and fish our reels in "free spool" and the clicker on until pickup. DON"T set the hook in the normal way with circle hooks, just lock the reel. We use 6/0-9/0 Gamakatsu circle hooks exclusively......more hookups, and less wasted fish.

4-Trolling Stretch 25's- Trolling Stretch 25 deep diving lures from Mann's products can be very successful if you use some common sense and some very easy techniques. It might take you a few trips to get the hang of it, but learning this technique will pay off in the end.

First of all, I like using med-heavy 7-8' rods that have a moderate taper. Couple that with a conventional level wind reel (we use Penn's 320 GT2's) but the choice of reel is up to you. There are numerous makers of really good level wind reels that you have available to you in whatever price range to fit your budget.

First, we load our reels with about 1/4 spool of mono backing, then using a loop to loop connection, fill the remainder of your reel with 40 lb braid line. Once again, the choice of braid is up to you, but I really like either Stren or Suffix products as they are a very supple braid. At the end of your braid, add a good high quality barrel swivel (I love the 80-100 lb. Psunami Pro) and then attach about a 6-8 ft. shot of 40-50 lb. leader tied to another high quality snap swivel. Now attach your Stretch 25 to your snap swivel and you're ready to go. Trolling speeds are crucial to success as anyone who trolls bunker spoons will tell you. I've found that a good speed for my boat is around 2-3 kts. You know that your lure is doing its thing when your rod tip is pulsating rapidly as you won't see the slower pulsation that a bunker spoon gives you. Drop the lure into the water and feed out enough line until you just start to dig into the sandy bottom and then crank in 5-6 turns of the reel. You should be trolling in 25-30 feet of water and NO MORE! Any deeper and your Stretch's will be swimming out of the strike zone of the Bass. Remember.....BIG Stripers feed almost exclusively within 5' of the bottom. (If you want proof of this, get you hands on the video "Stripers Gone Wild" and then you'll know why) If you decide that you want to troll Stretch 25's in deeper water you can always add an egg sinker to the braid line just before the barrel swivel to get it down deeper. A 2,3,or 4oz. egg sinker will work wonders getting that lure to the depth you want. I've had better success trolling "with the current" than against it. But that's me so experiment and see what works for you. Good Luck........

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Fluke Fishing Tips:

The New Jersey Fluke regulations for 2010 are:

Places to fish: Sandy Hook Channel, Ambrose Channel, Raritan Reach Channel,
Sandy Hook Reef, the Rattlesnake, Chapel Hill Channel, the ledge along Officer's Row, TC Buoy, Sp Buoy
the Sandy Hook Bug Light drop-off to name a few.........remember STRUCTURE!!!!

Tips:
We drift for Fluke to keep the baits moving. My choice of baits are squid strips and spearing combo, strips of bunker, strips of sea robbin and strips of bluefish. Targeting larger Fluke, I will use large strips or even whole small squid as bait in deep channel areas such as Sandy Hook and Ambrose channel. Bucktail jigs with squid strips can be deadly too, rigged along with a Clouser or Deceiver teaser on the same line. A "killer" bucktail last year was the 1oz - 4 oz Spro in Glo finish fished with a strip.........absolutely deadly!!!

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