THE ATLANTIC CITY REEF, NJ

Bg flounder towards the end of the season? The Atlantic City Reef is the place, no doubt about it.” Since the opinion came from Hugh Carberry, who was instrumental in the latest reef sinking of the Radford and coordinator of New Jersey’s Artificial Reef Program with New Jersey’s Bureau of Marine Fisheries, it was taken to the bank.

The four-square-mile AC Reef is the third largest in the 15-reef system, surpassed only by the Axel Carlson and Cape May spreads. Situated 12.2 nautical miles east of Atlantic City, it is 8.8 nautical miles from Absecon Inlet, 10.8 from Little Egg Inlet, and 14 from Great Egg Inlet. Depths range from 55 to 95 feet in gradual five-foot gradations, and the deployment structures are absolutely fluke, blackfish, and sea bass astounding.

Added Carberry, “There are 17 vessels on the AC Reef, and these include tankers, deck barges, tugs, freighters, schooners and clam barges.” These are flounder magnets and are also tog and sea bass-producing godzillas. The flatties are also fond of the Redbird and stainless steel subway cars, and are wont to take positions on the roofs, blasting upward to put the teeth to any passing prey.

In addition to the vessels and mass transit carriers, there are tire formations, reef ball sites, tanks, telecommunication cable bundles, and wide patches of demolition concrete, and hollow concrete castings.

The reef serves the drifting and anchoring angler magnificently. For doormat drifters, the prime area is between 39 16.200/74 14.400 and 39 14.600/74 13.400. While fluke can be picked off throughout the expanse, the aforementioned area is arms-in-the-air atomic.

Capt. Dave Showell at Absecon Bay Sportsman Center gets swamped as the flounder season draws to a close, as his shop is only a minute from the Faunts Landing Road launch, the quickest way through Absecon Inlet to the AC Reef. Capt. Dave said, “The Atlantic City Reef is a great ‘big’ flounder location, especially at the end of the season. The structure is great, the fish have weight and length, and there is a lot of room. This time of year, if you want the biggest flounder, you hit the AC Reef.”

Showell points to live spot, finger mullet and peanut bunker as the top offerings, with whole squid another flattie flattener. However, last year, the Berkley Gulp! Belly Strip in chartreuse and pink placed a good number of mats on deck. This September, he expects the six-inch Gulp! Grub, Swimming Mullet and Ripple Mullet to account for even greater numbers of specimen fluke. Colors? “Chartreuse and the pearl white,” he insists. The Gulp! is worked on either a standard rig or on a three- and four-ounce ball jig or same size SPRO bucktail.

While all of the artificial reefs along the Jersey coast will produce keeper fluke, the Atlantic City locus will prove itself the hot spot for the biggest fluke as the calendar dictates the season closure.