With rain gone, anglers resume hunt for striped bass on Raritan Bay
The deluge that dumped buckets of rain here is finally over, though it remained quite breezy Thursday. The good news for mariners and fishermen is the wind should switch to the west by Friday and lay down the seas.
More charter and party boats are returning to action now that the calendar has flipped to April. While many are geared up for the spring striper run, the blackfish are biting and for the freshwater faithful, trout season re-opens Saturday.
Last weekend the Raritan Bay spring fishery saw fish up to 40 pounds caught and released, said Phil Sciortino at the Tackle Box in Hazlet. He said fishermen found the bass at Round Shoal first, and then the warm sun brought the fish out onto the Keyport Flats. They were jigging shads and other lures.
However, it’s tough to say how the fish will respond after three days of rain and wind. Sciortino said it could take a couple of tide changes to get the fishery back and up and going. Fortunately, it looks like the fishermen will have the weather on their side for the next week or so.
Toms River is running high but despite the influx of rainwater Dennis Palmatier at the Hook House said the striped bass were biting Thursday morning. A few of them are in the neighborhood of 30 inches. He had a lot of anglers stop in for bloodworms and he’s got some flats of sandworms on hand for back-up. The freshwater from the cedar creeks that feed into the river have brought some catfish downstream, all the way to Huddy Park.
Out in Barnegat Bay, there have been reports of bass hitting behind Island Beach State Park, off the Rt. 37 Bridge and on the docks around Seaside. Grumpy’s Tackle had a couple of fish weighed in that were in the neighborhood of seven pounds.
A few party boats fished for blackfish on Monday, the first day of the brief month-long spring season. Anglers can keep four tog for the month of April. Capt. Bobby Quinn on the Ocean Explorer said they had good fishing with a few of his fares catching their limits, while others couldn’t get around the short tog. He spent the rest of the week at the dock due to the weather but as of
Thursday was planning to sail Friday.
Trout Opening Day
Trout season opens tomorrow. There should be plenty of fish around after staff from Fish & Wildlife spent the last two weeks stocking the waters with 184,300 rainbow trout.
For the kids, Saturday is the traditional Shark River Surf Anglers Kid’s Contest at Spring Lake. This one of the most kid friendly fishing events in the area. Last weekend about 100 kids took place in the club’s pre-stocking of the lake. On top of the 460 trout that Fish & Wildlife had added to the lake, the club donated another 500 for the contest, including a large rainbow trout in honor of the late Chris Hueth, who passed away in 2020.
The contest runs from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. The contest is free to kids 15 years and younger. No registration is required. Once a a child catches a trout they can weigh the fish in to be eligible to win one of the many prizes the club provides. And, while the club cannot keep adults from fishing the lake, several kids only fishing zones will be established where its hopeful that adults will give the kids the lake for the contest.