# 58487: Subject: Shrewsbury Rocks, Rattlesnake & off Long Branch, New Jersey

Submitted by Andrew Sokol (ip 68.192.62.3)

• Fished on 7/21/2010

• Report received: 7/22/2010

Water Temperature: .
Water Clarity: Good
Seas: Calm early but by mid afternoon 2-4' becoming closer to 3-5' as the south wind built.
Weather: Bright clear sunny skies early with building high clouds. Light & variable wind all morning with a slight south wind by noon becoming increasing stronger by mid afternoon until it was blowing a god 20-25.
Fishing_for: Fluke
Boat: Reel Class
captain: Alan Gonzalez

Report:
Original plan was to fish south of Manasquan Inlet but after reports from the previous day indicated the bite was better to the north, we made a left after breaking the inlet and heading to the Shrewsbury Rocks. Had good conditions upon arriving that allowed us to use 4 ounce Spros (probably could have even used 3's). We started fishing inside of the inner buoy. Wouldn't say the bite was non existent but it was very slow as I think we only had 3 short fluke in a couple of drifts. Headed offshore to the Rattlesnake where once again we had good conditions. We definitely had more bites but they seemed to be from sea bass-mostly shorts but 1-2 keepers too. Fluke bite was slightly better. At this point I only had 1 short fluke and 1 4-spot flounder to show for my efforts. Fluke were very non committal as the really wouldn't attack the bucktail and felt more like they were just hanging on to the end of the bait strip or GULP 6" grub. We had 3 in the box when I finally hooked up with what was definitely a very nice fluke. The fish had some weight and put a nice bend in the rod. Felt some serious headshaking going on but about half way it came unbuttoned. After that, the action tailed off so we made a move to the south & fished a hill in about 45' of water off Long Branch. Had enough action here to stay for a bit. I was finally able to box a 21" to bring the boat total to 4. Moved to another piece further offshore but by this time the wind/current had increased forcing us to bump up to 6 ounce Spros. I quickly added a 19" to the box. We had added another keeper right before I hooked up with another decent fluke. I was using a rod that I hadn't fished much so I wasn't exactly sure how big the fish was (also thought that there was a possibility that I had snagged it). It was giving some very good shakes. Got it to the top where it was quickly netted. Taped out to being just over 25.5" and weighed 7 pound son the boat's spring scale. The wind/drift kept building and since subsequent drifts here yielded just a few more shorts we moved back to the inshore spot. Drift was just barely fishable here as well. by the now the seas were a solid 3-5 so we opted to make the slow bouncy ride back. Day's total was only 7 keeper fluke (I had 3 of those) and 4 keeper sea bass. Hot bait of the day was a white Spro (either 4 or 6 ounces) tipped with a 6" GULP pink shine grub tail. Even using just that color grub tail as a teaser produced. Anything with green/chartreuse in it didn't produce nearly as well. Squid and/or bait strips produced mainly short bites or sea bass.

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