NJ Fishing Reports for July 2014.....www.StripersAndAnglers.com

[J Barbosa]

I fished yesterday again and still no luck finding the elusive croaker. Its almost ironic because last year I felt like it was too hard to fish the bay for fluke because the croakers were like piranhas getting to the gulp before the fluke ever got a chance to see it.

I cast net some peanut bunker and snappers in the morning.

I fished two rods side by side most of the day. On the first rod I put a live or dead peanut bunker and placed it in the rod holder and let the wind and current drift me around.

On the second rod I fished gulp by casting it and jigging it back to the kayak.

Yesterdays results was all shorts on both the gulp and peanuts.

The gulp caught me a lot of tiny fluke all the way down to 6" or so and nothing over 15".

The peanut bunker caught less fish but they averaged out to a larger size up to 17.5".

The bad news is the dogfish have invaded the RB and really love live peanuts. My friend snapped his light fluke rod when a 5ft doggie tried to run under his kayak.

[lostatsea]

Great report jbarbosa and steve.
JB do you feel the kayak lets you get to places where larger fluke are sitting? All I have been getting lately are shorts. I fished moco twice in the last week and got shorts each time. I was using 2 pieces of gulp swimming mullet white and chartreuse. I did catch but the south wind was terrible. I don't know how you guys deal with it?

[lostatsea]

jb if I could also ask how big are the peanut bunker? thanks

[J Barbosa]

Lostatsea,

I have a love/hate relationship with the kayak. It definitely has it's advantages but at the same time it's not any easier to pick through all the short fluke and seaweed on the kayak. I think it's just a numbers game...catch 20-25 shorts for every keeper. I hate carrying the dam heavy thing around and once you unstrap it from the roof your kind of limited to fishing within 6-8 miles of the launch point.

When I first bought the kayak I had a hard time even finding the fluke in numbers. There is a lot of water to cover and not all of it holds fluke.

Once the water warms up some more and we get more bait into the surf I'll leave the kayak at home.

Peanuts...yesterday they were all mostly in the 3-5" range. This size is very hard to keep alive but can be done with some work. I threw the cast net two weeks ago and all I could find was lots of 1" peanuts so a new school must have moved in.

[DarkSkies]

Message for CHALOOTS!.......

My phone died again....
I sent you a PM....most of my numbers were on that phone.....I know you check these reports every day.....so when ya see this call me at that new # I left for ya.....
(remember to leave your phone # this time - I can't call ya back unless ya leave a #)

Talk soon.....

[jigfreak]

Fished after the rain last nite. Back bay structure OC. Fishing for weakies, nada. Fished in front OC this morning. Lots of surfers were out early. The ocean was a little messed up from the rain - water a little dirty. Water should clean up in the next 24 hours. Nice W and NW winds forecast in the next day. It was east this morning but I got blanked again.

[hookset]

West is best. Thanks for the conditions report.