{"id":5960,"date":"2015-08-28T05:27:08","date_gmt":"2015-08-28T09:27:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/?p=5960"},"modified":"2015-08-28T03:43:49","modified_gmt":"2015-08-28T07:43:49","slug":"fishing-friday-fluke-a-best-bet-early-signs-of-a-good-striped-bass-season-ahead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/2015\/08\/fishing-friday-fluke-a-best-bet-early-signs-of-a-good-striped-bass-season-ahead\/","title":{"rendered":"Fishing Friday: Fluke a Best Bet, Early Signs of A Good Striped Bass Season Ahead"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"A<\/a>

A doormat fluke caught on board the Norma K III this week. (Photo: Narma K III crew.)<\/p><\/div>\n

As the calendar looks more and more threatening \u2013 September, the unofficial end of summer, is just days away \u2013 fluke fishing remains good throughout Ocean County, with warm waters keeping the fish active in most of their usual haunts for this time of year.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, it\u2019s looking more and more like a good striped bass season is ahead, and unlike the last few years many local anglers are predicting we could be in for an early start.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith these cooler nights expect the bass here very soon,\u201d a report from Grumpy\u2019s Tackle<\/a> in Seaside Park said. \u201cBait continues to stage up in the bay, ready for the fall migration.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the interim, fluking is an angler\u2019s best bet. The suds offer plenty of action, the folks at Grumpy\u2019s say, with some bluefish mixed in. There\u2019s also blowfish to be caught in the bay \u2013 they\u2019re \u201csmall but plentiful,\u201d the report said.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s also plenty of baitfish present in the Toms River, said Mario from Murphy\u2019s Hook House<\/a> on Route 37 east. The surf is offering scattered fluke and bluefish, though many of the fluke are small. Some drum are also being caught in the ocean.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust a reminder that the puppy drum that are around have to be 16 inches to keep so make sure you throw those little ones back,\u201d the report from Murphy\u2019s said.<\/p>\n

Crabbing in the northern half of Barnegat Bay is holding steady, locals said all week, and the Murphy\u2019s report indicated the crabbing in the river was good as well. Another great crabbing spot is near Gull Island in Point Pleasant Beach (tip courtesy of Alex\u2019s Inlet Bait and Tackle<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Speaking of Point Pleasant Beach, the crew at Alex\u2019s B&T know a few guys who fished the surf in between the inlet jetty and the Tiki Bar pier one night this week and managed to catch some striped bass. They were throwing SP minnows tipped with Berkeley Gulp jerk shads. Again, good signs for the fall run! The shop also reported fluke being caught at \u201cthe wall\u201d at the inlet.<\/p>\n

Fluke action is also holding steady on the party boats out of Manasquan Inlet, with the Queen Mary getting into some mackerel action this week.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo me, more bites have been coming on the gulp and bucktails<\/span>,\u201d Capt. Matt from the Norma K III said in a report this week. \u201cGreen and nuclear chicken gulps have been working the best.<\/span>\u201d<\/p>\n

The photo at the top of this story this week is from the NKIII \u2013 they know what they\u2019re talking about.<\/p>\n

As usual, feel free to reach out with tips, photos and reports. Catch me at daniel@shorebeat.com. See you in September!<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As the calendar looks more and more threatening \u2013 September, the unofficial end of summer, is just days away \u2013 fluke fishing remains good throughout Ocean County, with warm waters keeping the fish active in most of their usual haunts for this time of year. Meanwhile, it\u2019s looking more and more like a good striped […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5961,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[5],"tags":[95,24,255,182,256,100],"class_list":["post-5960","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-boating-fishing","tag-barnegat-bay","tag-brick-nj-news","tag-fishing-report","tag-jersey-shore","tag-manasquan-inlet","tag-toms-river"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/fluke_normakIII.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pgt2Ft-1y8","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5960","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5960"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5960\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5961"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5960"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5960"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5960"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}