The fishing was flat out awesome today. Today I had Dan Collins and his 2 brother in-laws aboard Archangel for the best day of bottom fishing we've had all summer. We fished the Shrewsbury Rocks and we had non-stop catching from the first drop until the end. We went through a 3lb bag of Spearing, and 3 bags of Chartreuse Gulp swimming minnows, the first time that's ever happened on my boat. The guys had 2 fish that qualify for New Jersey's Skillful Angler award with a 4lb. Sea Bass and an 8 1/2 lb. Fluke, the biggest we've had on my boat this year. We filled the cooler with keepers with a great ratio of about 5 to 1 keepers to throwbacks. Great bunch of guys and great fun, at one point everyone took a break from the action and went swimming. Perfect day on the water with glass-like conditions. I have charters the next 2 days and hopefully it stays like this or gets better.
-Mickey
If you are interested in booking a fishing trip with me please check out my website at http://www.mickeysfishing.com
Thu, 12 Aug 2010
Sea Bass/Fluke report
Sorry this report is a day late! Yesterday I had "Alex" fishing with me on Archangel and we had another solid day with the Sea Bass, Fluke, and Ling. It was nice having only one angler on the boat because it gave me an opportunity to do some fishing myself. We caught a zillion short Fluke and Sea Bass and a nice pick of keepers as well with pretty constant action all day. I was doing a little experiment with Berkeley Gulp to see which color and pattern the fish liked the most but the results were inconclusive, the fish seemed to like it all about the same. I just canceled tomorrow's trip because of projected 6-7' swell and rain and winds to 20 knots, hope to be back on the water on Sunday.
If you are interested in booking a fishing trip with me please check out my website at http://www.mickeysfishing.com
-Mickey
Mon, 09 Aug 2010
Gorgeous Sea Bass today on Archangel
My charter today drove all the way up from Athens, Georgia to fish with me on Archangel. We had great action all day with dozens of short fluke and some gorgeous keeper Sea Bass. The best part was that they are staying in a local hotel so I took them to my favorite local watering hole so they could enjoy their fish. The chef cooked us up their fresh Sea Bass 3 different ways--Sauteed with bacon and leeks, Ceviche style, and Sashimi. (Thanks Allie!) If there's a better eating fish than fresh Sea Bass then I don't know what it is. An awesome day of fishing, drinking, and eating with some really nice people. The wind kicked up out of the south around noon and that pretty much killed our drift and the bite, luckily we were on the water at 7am and got the most out of our day. A lot of fish came over the rail today and if they were to lower to lower the size limit on Fluke to 17 inches we could've filled the cooler with them too.
If you are interested in booking a fishing trip with me please check out my website at http://www.mickeysfishing.com
-Mickey
Sun, 25 Jul 2010
Lots of Fluke, Sea Bass
Yesterday was not the best day to have back to back trips because the heat was pretty close to unbearable. We left the dock at 7am to compete in the Fluke Derby at my marina in Belmar. The fishing was as good as we've had all season, at one point it was absolutely on fire. Unfortunately (as it always seems to be) most of the fish were a half an inch short of keeper size. We did manage to bring 7 fish to the scale, not a bad ratio for this summer but the big doormat sized fish we were looking for never hit our lines. The interesting thing was the lack of Sea Bass on the morning trip, where we've had a ratio of about 5 to 1 bass to fluke, yesterday was all Fluke action. All in all the fishing was tremendous though with about 75 to 80 fish coming over the rail.
In the evening I hosted Scott Knyper and crew for a Saturday night surprise birthday party. I booked this trip onto Captain Steve Spinelli's Skylarker II and we hit the wrecks to fish for Sea Bass. These guys came to party and fish and they did a tremendous job at both. Again, the heat was unbearable and we lost a man due to heat stroke--he didn't actually die, but for a second there I thought he might. I included his picture with this email. The fishing was awesome with a lot of nice fish over 3 lbs. We also had Blackfish, Ling, Conger Eels, Pout, and the usual suspects you find while fishing the wrecks.
I'll bet I drank 25 bottles of water yesterday, if you're going out there in this heat please make sure you stay hydrated, it is brutal out there. If anyone wants to fish I have Tuesday available before the band leaves on tour for a week.
-Mickey
If you are interested in booking a fishing trip with me please check out my website at http://www.mickeysfishing.com
-Mickey
Wed, 21 Jul 2010
Good Bottom Fishing Today
We're eating fish for dinner tonight. We finally put together a consistent bite of keeper Fluke today, along with a cooler filled with Sea Bass and Ling. With the Shark River Yacht Club Fluke Tournament on Saturday we wanted to do a little bit of recon and look for some doormats. While we didn't find any Fluke above 3 or 4 lbs. we all had keepers; I had 4 which is about 3 more than I've managed on my previous outings this summer. We were surrounded by Bunker schools all day too, which was nice to see with all of the people complaining about the commercial guys netting up around the Hook. It was a beautiful day on the water and the action was non-stop--all this in 3 1/2 hours of catching. I counted 26 fish in the box with at least as many released.
Wed, 14 Jul 2010
Sharks are Back!
Wed, 23 Jun 2010
Massive Thresher Shark on Archangel
Mike and I went out Striper fishing yesterday afternoon. The bite was slow until around 7pm and then we started seeing a few Bass getting landed by the boats around us in a giant bunker school off of Spring Lake, NJ. I was sort of spacing out staring off the stern of the boat when a gigantic Thresher Shark came and blasted a bunch of bunker out of the water with his giant scythe tail about 20 feet behind my boat. I almost crapped my pants. A couple of seconds later the drag on my Shimano Torium 16 started screaming and I knew that we were in for a world of hurt. We were into the fish for more than an hour and we didn't have a gaff, a gun, a bang stick, or a hand grenade to kill it. All I have is this boring video where you don't get to see the Shark because the camera died and by the time we had the fish subdued at the side of the boat it was pitch black outside and we were the last boat on the water. I showed this video to my son and he said it sucked because you don't get to see the shark. He's sort of right, but if you love fishing you will hopefully be able to relate to the sheer chaos, agony, confusion, and unpreparedness that you experience when hooking a fish that has you completely outmatched in every way. As far as I'm concerned we landed the damn thing, which was about 6 feet of Shark with an additional 4 feet of tail.
By the way, if you think this video is boring I want you to know that I edited it down from 40 minutes to 5 minutes, so just watch the damn thing.
That's my fishing report.
-Mickey
Fri, 18 Jun 2010
INSANE BITE TODAY.
Around 4pm today the ocean exploded off of Asbury Park like nothing any of us had ever witnessed. There was about 1 mile of Striped Bass on the surface blowing bunker clear out of the water. There had to be at least 75 boats on the action and all you could hear were drags screaming and people yelling. The Bass were being taken on live bunker, dead bunker, pencil poppers, Shads, metal, and anything else you could get into the melee. I have never seen anything on that scale, and there are a lot of happy anglers out there with sore arms right now. Even with all of the action we've seen this spring today gets an A+. The best part was that I had no charter today so me and Mike had the whole boat to ourselves. One of those days you're lucky to experience once every few years--by the time we were finished the deck was covered in broken tackle, scales, blood and guts, and big birds nests of line.
-Mickey
Tue, 15 Jun 2010
Bass fishing still incredible in Mid-June
Me and Mike Nucero fished aboard Archangel this morning and we never had to leave the vicinity of our inlet. As soon as we made the right turn to head South from the inlet we saw gigantic Striped Bass spraying Bunker across the surface of the water, the first time this year we found that kind of action in so close. It looked like bombs were falling from the sky in about 20 feet of water, and with one throw of the cast net we had about 70 pieces of Bunker in the livewell. We worked the same school for 2 hours and landed 5 big Bass out of 8 runoffs and again, the bite was over in about 90 minutes. We were in the car driving home before most people were awake this morning, another killer early morning bite.
-Mickey
Fri, 11 Jun 2010
June 11, 2010
With all of the bunker boats pretty much shutting down the fishing out of my inlet this week I told my charter that we were going to fish way earlier than normal. We wanted to beat the spotter planes and the commercial bunker fleet at their own game this morning by running at first light. It turns out that we made the right move because our action was instant and manic, if you were late to the fishing grounds, chances are you didn't find either Bunker or Bass. The bunker were right along the beachfront when we came out and there were also 7 (!) Bunker boats complete with spotter planes steaming our way. We got lucky and with one throw of the cast net we filled our live well. On the first drop we had a tripleheader with the biggest fish topping out at a certified 40 lbs and every guy on the boat hooked into slob Bass. My charter was from Chicago and they had never caught a big Bass before. The next couple of drifts yielded more fish and then it was over. Today was definitely a case of "the early bird gets the worm/Bass."
-Mickey
Sun, 06 Jun 2010
A busy week on the water.
What a week. Ween got home from tour on Tuesday night and I was out on the water hosting Zach first thing Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday mornings. We did very well once again on monster stripers. The weather kept us in the inlet on Thursday (where we played around with some keeper Fluke), and it's a good thing that we stayed inside the river. This 40 foot Cabin Cruiser was smashed on the rocks while trying to run through the fog that night before. Check out some before and after pictures. Here it is on Thursday morning:
Here's what it looked like 24 hours later..........
Fri, 28 May 2010
More big Stripers on the Archangel
With the marine forecast looking kinda crappy, and the onslaught of Memorial Day boat traffic soon to come, we decided to break the inlet at first light this morning. I had a not so good feeling about today's trip, call it a hunch but the fishing has just been too good for too long. With Ween going on tour tomorrow I just had to get one last fix of these big fish before my flight tomorrow morning. Well, my hunch was totally wrong and we had a doubleheader on the first drift. These fish were big slobs as you can see in the pictures. We boated 7 or 8 fish in about 2 1/2 hours and then bailed out victorious. We had at least as many run-offs so there was a lot of action. Not to name any names (John Marcus), but one of my guys cancelled today because he was too much of a wuss to wake up at 4am. He probably thinks he can catch 40lb Stripers from his couch on days when it's convenient for him. The fish were out in 60 feet of water today in front of Asbury Park.
-Mickey
Wed, 26 May 2010
Even more Bass
Today me and Craig fished on Archangel and had even more big Bass. This is starting to get crazy how good the fishing has been. this shit has been like this since april!
Fri, 21 May 2010
More big Stripers on the Archangel
The ass whooping continues. Today me and Nick and Glenn McClelland (keyboard player for Ween) beat up on big fish. Check out the video of Glenn's fish.
-Mickey
Tue, 18 May 2010
Big Ass Bass in Cape May 5-17
Yesterday I had Shayne and his buddies fishing with me aboard the Clean Sweep in Cape May. It took a while to find the fish but once we found them it was game on. These fish were both spawned out, and full of eggs. The spring of 2010 continues to amaze.
