Bass, Blues and Fluke!
By Capt. Dave Azar

   In 2007 we saw an abundance of various types of bait in late spring and summer. Raritan Bay was loaded with adult bunker and shoals of “rain bait” flooded the near coastal waters of the New York Bight. If things are even half as good as last year, ravenous post-spawn striped bass, racer bluefish and doormat fluke will be heading our way to put on the feed bag.

 

 

   Those post-spawn bass will home in on bunker schools, and Raritan Bay should be a prime June spot for targeting some big cows. A prime stretch for this activity has been along the upper Raritan Reach from Old Orchard Shoals to the Round Shoal area. High concentrations of bunker can usually be found around harbors and these are good places to harvest the bait needed for a day’s fishing. Great Kills Harbor and Atlantic Highlands Marina are just two areas where bunker can be snagged or cast netted to fill up the live well.

   Live-lining an adult bunker is a surefire method for targeting bigger bass, but chunking fresh bunker can sometimes be more productive, especially if chopper blues are in the mix. Whether to fish from an anchored position or to drift is a matter of personal preference and fishing conditions. Some of the reasons to anchor include high wind or current speed, a large numbers of boats in the area, and high concentrations of fish holding structure in a well-circumscribed area. Drifting is a better option when currents are light and fish tend to be more scattered.   

   Extreme boating courtesy is necessary when a lot of boats are working the same area. Needless to say, drifting should not be done in an area where other boats are anchored, and it would be good practice for anyone thinking of anchoring where several boats are drifting to do so well out of the path of the drift or in another area all together.

   These spring stripers may show on the surface working the edges or middle of a bunker school, but more often the bait and bass will be deep. Judicious use of a fish finder, while carefully cruising an area where bunker have been spotted, can help to locate the fish. Submerged bunker schools will appear as dense dark circles or hills with individual fish marks around the edges. When the bunker are located, hooked baits should be deployed immediately. If there are predators around the strikes won’t be long in coming. If several attempts come up empty, then it’s time to look for another school of bunker.

   Live bunker and bunker chunks should be fished, both with and without weight, until the best method is discovered. This can change from day to day and some experimenting is always in order. If chopper blues are destroying the live baits there are several alternatives; move somewhere else, fish with chunks, or add a wire leader and fish for the bluefish. Those set on catching stripers might not take the last option seriously, but some of those blues can go over 15 pounds and will put up a heck of a fight.

   If the blues seem to be too thick to give the stripers a chance to find the bait, moving may be the only option. However, before moving, try fishing some large chunk baits either free drifted or on the bottom. Often the stripers are lurking below the bluefish waiting to pick up the chopped up bunker that are sinking down to the bottom. 

Awesome bait for this type of fishing situation is the forward half of a whole bunker with the guts contained in the body cavity and hooked through the body cavity rather than the head.

   The clam beds, Flynn’s Knoll and Romer Shoals can also be excellent places to try either clams or chunked bunker. Setting up a chum slick with either clam bellies or bunker chum will help draw the fish to an anchored boat, but drifting with livies or chunks will produce as well.

   Bluefish working bunker schools will often hit big poppers. Large splashy plugs should be worked around the edges of the bunker school for some heart stopping strikes. Though it is a rare occurrence, a striper may also take the plug.

   If large concentrations of bunker are found at the fishing grounds the “snag & drop” technique can be used. A weighted treble hook is rigged with a wire leader and used to snag a bunker, which is then allowed to swim in free spool. Striped bass will take the bunker whole, while bluefish will chop the bunker and will not get hooked until they have eaten the portion with the hook in it, but it is also possible a striper will pick up the remaining half.

 

 

   Fluke will have moved to inshore waters by now and after a long winter offshore will be intent on feeding heavily. These early season fish will spread out to find favorable habitat and feeding grounds. Generally these fish are found along channel drop-offs, but at this time of year, both the fluke and the bait they seek will be attracted to warmer areas. Anglers are likely to find big fluke feeding on shallow flats where a day of bright sunshine has raised the temperature several degrees above seawater temperatures. The best flats will be adjacent to channels since this allows easy access to the safety of deep water and also provides a convenient route for their travels into deeper bays, estuaries and rivers. Such areas occur near the tip of Sandy Hook and the flats that continue on the bay side of the Sandy Hook recreational area, as well as inside of Sandy Hook Bay on the flats surrounding the “Ammo Pier”. Both sides of the Raritan Reach Channel have shoal areas that also attract fluke.

   If water temperatures have been unusually warm, some fluke may have already moved up into the Navesink and Shrewsbury Rivers. However, if the opposite is true, and fishing is slow inside the bays, it may pay to work the ocean-side beaches along Sandy Hook as an alternative.

   With current regulations allowing only eight fish at 18 inches or greater, fluke anglers have to adapt there approach to targeting big fish. The old standby squid strip/baitfish combo will still catch a lot of fish and can provide hours of solid action, but for those more intent on hooking keeper fluke, a “big bait equals big fish” approach is appropriate. Big baits include whole squid, juvenile bunker and snapper bluefish. All of these baits can be fished on a standard, three-way rig or with a fish-finder rig. Either way, a long drop-back should be employed before attempting to set the hook.

   There has been a noticeable increase in the use of artificial enhancements in fluke rigging, such as plastic skirts, in-line spinners and bucktail jigs. While this captain has long been an advocate of “less is more” when it comes to fishing rigs, I will admit that some of these enhancements may add just the edge needed to sort out the bigger fish from the large number of shorts.