The striped bass fishing in the Beach Haven area continues to be frustrating for the captains of the Beach Haven Charter Fishing Association. The water temperatures are finally down where they should be and there is plenty of bait around, but very few bass. There is currently the largest run of sand eels in memory so the bass will hang around when they do arrive.
Captain Fran Verdi of the “Francesca Marie” has been running a few trips a week with anglers chasing the stripers. He has found that he must run to the north to find any trace of bass despite the enormous amounts of bait in the ocean. He has been finding most of his fish on the troll with his top fish being a nice 30-pounder caught on an umbrella lure.
Captain John Lewis who runs “Insatiable” Sportfishing has also been finding the fishing to be hit and miss. He has been making trips both to the north of Long Beach Island and even south off Brigantine trying to find bass.
Last Saturday he took the Dougherty party north of Barnegat Inlet looking for the fish after hearing some good reports of stripers and jumbo bluefish being caught during the week. Captain John said it looked like every boat in New Jersey was also fishing in that area. He trolled up to Ortley beach without a touch, and only heard of a few bass and blues being caught. As the “Insatiable” trolled south for home one of the bunker spoon rods went down. 14 year old Fitz was the only angler with the patience to stay in the cockpit and he was rewarded with a nice 20-pound striper.