June 3, 2014 — New Jersey’s summer flounder season opened a week ago this past Friday. It was rather cool, cloudy and windy. But, do you know what? No one cared because fish of all species were there waiting and they were hungry. I think it was one of the better opening days in quite some time.
I was out with some friends behind Ocean City. Our take-home was a pair of 20-inch flatties and some very nice bluefish and weakfish. Of the four people on the boat the high hook was using just a bare hook tipped with a strip of shark. He easily outfished the rest of us.
While our 20-inch flounder were nice, there were some real beauties caught all up-and-down the coast. The largest I could turn up was 8.5-pounds that was taken in Absecon Bay, always a hot spot. In Ludlam Bay behind Sea Isle City there was a 7.25-pounder put in the box.
From everything I have heard, almost all of that opening day activity took place in shallow water. I know we frequently had just two feet of water beneath our keel. Yet, where we were fishing the water temp was in the mid 60s so you would think they might be down in deeper water.