Tuckerton Bait and Tackle

Mike at Tuckerton Bait and Tackle tells us that the weather and the weekend finally lined up and he and his customers couldn't be happier. Gallons of minnows met their fate this weekend in the mouths of hungry flounder. Anglers are still finding that short fish are outnumbering keepers by a 15-1 margin, but there is lots of action to keep anglers busy. Also keeping anglers busy, and on their toes, is the staggering number of huge smooth doggies around. Avoiding the doggies, if at all possible, is step number one in finding flounder. Mike also warns that there are brownies around too. Speaking of toothy critters, bluefish are scattered about the bay as are the stripers. The warm and sunny days really broke the crabbing scene wide open with full traps of keeper crabs for happy crabbers.

Mike at Tuckerton Bait and Tackle tells us that many of his customers are suffering from “short fish frustration”. Case in point is one customer who came into the shop with a report of 23 short flounder and just one keeper. That keeper was a slab of a fish at 22 inches, but that still doesn’t make up for the low keeper ratio. Mike suggests "poking" around the warmer, shallower water creeks in order to get out of the wind. Here, there should be some keepers if you can get a proper drift. Mike advises us to make sure our flounder gear is in good working order because there are some hefty dogfish in the bay right now that will run you around the boat like “wicked tuna”. Speaking of sharks, the brownies have arrived and are picking off fish as anglers are about to hoist them out of the water along the last wooden bridge on Seven Bridges Road. The tax man is coming for your flounder. Stripers are being caught in Great Bay for anglers targeting them with clam, and there were a couple of brief bluefish blitzes at Graveling Point this this week with eating size blues to 5 pounds.