Kayak Fishing Report for Raritan Bay New Jersey 5-24-14

Kayak fishing Raritan Bay New Jersey for Striped Bass Bluefish and Fluke (Summer Founder)

Arrived at the drop in at 5 am. Did not stop for any bait as best bets there would be bunker plenty available. Water temps 60 degrees outgoing tide had just started. Water was muddy as there were heavy thunder storms the night before. There was actually an entire tree trunk floating.

Started Trolling with Diawa SP Minnow. No luck no bunker. Trolled for 2.5 hours. Decided to switch for Fluke.

First drift had a few hits. Maybe Sea Robins or Fluke that were just mouthing bait.

Made around 15 drifts with no hook ups. Wind was against tide and strong. A bit chilly intil around 9am. Finally spotted bunker. Small schools boats kept crashing the schools. I was able to snag one.

Rigged the bunker for live line set up. Drifted across reach channel . Had a hit on the bunker then no more. Reeled up only the head was left.

Dropped back down and hooked up a bluefish that eventually sawed my hook off the leader. By now the sun was out strong and the wind was pretty straight out of the north. Spotting bunker was almost impossible.  Decided to troll and ended up landing a nice bluefish 30”. Lost my SP minnow and a few other lures.

Called it a day at 2:00 PM just after slack low tide.

Striped Bass in thinking are mostly up the river spawning. Few reports of them on the radio. A little early for fluke in the back of the bay. Maybe by this weekend.