There’s more at the shore than just summer flounder!
I was talking to a buddy of mine in early August about the Marine Recreational Information Program, or MRIP, which is the survey methodology used to monitor annual harvest in the recreational fishing community. By all accounts, the 2024 season has been awful on the fluke grounds from the tip of Sandy Hook down into the Delaware Bay.
It’s pretty clear, to me anyway, that the prevailing south winds this summer have really hampered our summer flounder fishery. But the big question is, how will the results fare when the final MRIP numbers come out?
Check out our News Briefs section of this week’s digital edition of The Fisherman Magazine for more on MRIP, but in the interim we can at least celebrate the fact that some other summer visitors in the New Jersey, Delaware Bay region have provided ample reason to keep fishing through the southerlies!
The summer of 2024 will go down as one of the better cobia seasons at the Jersey Shore with multiple catches reported through the beginning of August. After 66 years of fishing around live bunker schools, Bill Hudak finally got his first Jersey cobia at the end of July.Harold Herbert was tossing a cast net on the Manasquan this summer when he pulled up this gizzard shad. Also known as mud shad, the gizzard shad gets its name from its thick-walled, gizzard-like stomach, and is easily distinguished from other shad and herring species by its inferior, sub-terminal, mouth.Tyler Deck and his girlfriend Rachael spent a few quality hours on the beach at Hereford Inlet in July soaking clams in the last two hours of daylight, scoring 15 northern kingfish. “It was an awesome bite and made for some delicious fish tacos,” Tyler reported, while encouraging others to give these tasty saltwater panfish a shot.“Sheepshead season started on the slow side with cold waters earlier this month but has ramped up recently with the warming temps,” said Gregg Sakowicz in late July, noting how he has since landed a number of South Jersey “convict fish” using Bottom Sweeper jigs tipped with sand fleas, fiddlers, and Asian shore crabs.The Atlantic croaker, also referred to as a hardhead, is a member of the drum family which has returned in amazing numbers this season in the lower half of the Garden State. Young JJ Nikolouzos got into the croaker action in July while fishing with “Mako Bob” of Allen’s Dock in New Gretna.
