9/28 – We had Ray C and his long time childhood friends out on a gorgeous Sunday for what will hopefully be an annual trip for this great group of guys. Ray won this trip in a silent auction donation to The Janet Fund, which is dedicated to preventing sudden cardiac death in New Jersey’s youth through awareness, legislation, AED placement and training. It is the goal of The Janet Fund to make Automatic External Defibrillators (AEDs) available in every school in NJ and make them commonplace on playing fields. We started off the day targeting bonita and false albies, but they were more scarce today and we struggled to find them on the troll. To give these guys some action, they agreed to do some bottom fishing knowing it was catch and release on the sea bass. One stop on a wreck provided all the bottom fish action with countless (and big) sea bass being released, blackfish, and other bottom dwellers being pulled up. Dense schools of mackerel arrived, and the guys switched over to some light tackle to fight these plentiful macks. The guys quickly filled a big cooler with the macks, and added some bonita on the jig. Back at the dock, mate Darryl treated the guys to some delicious bonita sashimi as the guys traded stories about the day. Their trip was a perfect reminder of what being on the water is all about!

9/21 – After having to cancel yet another canyon overnighter on Thurs/Friday, Mushin did a crew trip pursuing bonita and other “inshore tunas” with plans to drop for some cod. We were met by still big seas from the Friday/Saturday blow – but there were plenty of bonita and albies on the troll. The fish were not bunched up enough to make chum/jig/bait fishing the way we’d want it.  With plenty of these inshore tunas in the box on ice, we tried to drop for some cod on one wreck but were INUNDATED by sea bass that were sometimes 30+ feet thick off the bottom. Needless to say, the cod never had a chance to get to the clam baits. We were talking knucklehead-sized sea bass all around that jumped all over that baits that had to be released as “out of season”.  We still have lots of great Fall fishing to come with Canyon tuna, stripers/blues/bonita, and bottom fishing.

8/29 – 30 – We reserved the days for fishing the MRMTC Offshore Open – a wonderful organization and tournament – for the Mushin crew to fish. We delayed our departure due to the heavy seas remaining from Hurricane Cristobal – and got out to the grounds around 8:30 am. The crew worked like clockwork and put out the big fish trolling spread, but there was little action this morning for the fleet. Around noon, there was a nice daytime yellowfin bite on the chunk – and we joined in to boat a couple of beautiful yellowfin. As evening approached, we put out the big fish trolling spread again – and looked right up to dark when three bigeyes piled on as we crossed over a pod of pilot whales! Bill, Steve, and Darryl each got on their fish. Steve’s fish pulled off, and Darryl’s fish got boatside before it pulled off. Bill fought his fish for about an hour, and turned out at 155# on the scale. The night bite was still a bit off. At pre-dawn, we set out the big fish trolling pattern again – and after working away from the huge fleet of boats we went 3 for 4 on longfins. The rest of the day was quiet – but lots of great signs for the upcoming canyon season. Several other nice bigeyes were pulled this evening as well – but more out there to be caught.

8/18 – We had the O’Donnells with us for their first of two canyon trips – it is always a pleasure to have them on board. With high hopes of a hot bite after reports of bigeyes/yellowfin/longfin all weekend at a nearby canyon, we were a bit disappointed with the slow bite today on the day troll – but they were real sportsmen and had a great attitude about the fishing . The fishing looked very promising with lots of bait/whales/porpoise, and some spurts of tuna with yellowfin and longfin tunas. The most unusual catch of the day involved a “double header” of sorts…a 25# pound mahi and a 5# jack- caught on the troll!

8/13 – As many of you noticed, our website was partly down for a few weeks as GoDaddy no longer supported the product for the Blog – that’s why we’ve been out of touch with current fishing reports, updates, etc…. But thanks to the technological wizardry of Kris Stensland, we have our NEW WEBSITE! We trust you find it even better than the old one…So on to fishing! We have been BUSY fishing inshore and offshore! Many inshore trips have hit the near-shore lumps crushing BONITA on the troll and with jigs/bait, and adding BLUES. These trips have usually “had enough!” by mid-morning, so we would switch over to SEA BASS and LING fish on the rough bottom for the rest of the day. We have also been running OFFSHORE to the canyons for YELLOWFIN, LONGFIN, and releasing WHITE MARLIN. We had a couple of trips with HOT DAYTIME YELLOWFIN CHUNKING – “just like old times” where many boats in the fleet were all hooked up with multiples.  Day trolling for tuna and marlin has been consistent as well, and the night “chunking” bite should explode soon with all the bait that is around. We are still actively booking for CANYON TRIPS for September and October, as well as INSHORE trips for sea bass/ling/fluke, as well as bonita/blues for August through November. Striped Bass will active in October/November when we often jig them until our arms are tired! Give us a call and set up your trip!