Open Boat Report for October 22nd
October 22, 2022 Ocean City 3 photos

Trip Summary

SATURDAY OCTOBER 22nd "DEEP" SEA BASS OPEN BOAT REPORT. I mean, errr, OPEN BOAT PORGIES! An upside-down trip. Saturday brought Craig, Jason, Taylor anf my old friend Brian out for an 8 hour "Go Deep" trip. Why was it upside down? Usually on these trips we catch many keeper sea bass with a few porgies and blues thrown in the mix. But Saturday brought only 8 keeper sea bass - out of about 200 caught but..... 31 keeper porgies 13 keeper bluefish AND WE HAD A "FIRST EVER" UNIQUE CATCH! Craig! With a triple-header of 3 different species on one drop! Craig is a skilled angler who knew patience would pay off by leaving his rig down after the first fish bit to see what else would latch-on. That's a sea bass, porgy and bluefish on one rig. Insane. We started out at the Deepwater artificial reef site, which is 23 miles off the beach and 26 miles from GE Inlet. It was "meh", alot of small sea bass with some porgies and blues. We move to another spot about 28 miles out. A little better keeper ratio and the spot where Craig got the triple-header. I decided to get away from the crowd and we headed to another spot we had to ourselves for awhile. More action and it was loaded with porgies, blues and some sea bass. Schools of false albacore were everywhere. So Mate John (who has been a real find to complement the rest of the crew - an excellent young mate) would occassionally throw a lure. No luck. First he snapped the line. Later, a wind-knot. A muffed cast. Then he tried to blame the reel. ? So it came down to me. Had to show the young gun on how it's done for a nice false albie on light tackle. One cast, one very nice false albacore. ? Still plenty of fishing left to be done. Open boats are running most Saturdays till Christmas. Private charters available all other days.
The Mighty Heron
Ocean-city, New Jersey, United States
Mighty Heron Charters – Let's Go! thumbnail
Welcome to Mighty Heron Charters! We have been awarded the Fishingbooker "Anglers Choice" award for 14 consecutive quarters. We have over 210 5-star reviews on fishingbooker, google, and facebook. Mighty Heron Charters has been featured in OCNJ ...

Other reports from this captain

Stripers
Stripers "Up North"
November 18, 2024
Hey Gang, On Sunday, we found some dense schools of bunker right off the beach but as what is normal of late there was nothing there except doggies. So we went a little deeper and found some bird play and occasional fish on the surface chasing sand eels. Thanks to our buds on another charter boat we were advised to put out some trolling gear even deeper. It worked. We ended up with a couple “overs”, measuring up to 35”, 4 slot keepers, and 2 bonus in about an hour. Persistence and flexibility to do different things (like things I don’t care for - trolling - ) paid-off. Had our first double-header of stripers on a trolling rig in like, 15+ years. On Monday we had Ken and his dedicated crew of anglers out for stripers. These guys were focused on using top-water, jigs and plastics. The fish were even more scattered than on Sunday and we had a whipping West wind. It was whack-a-mole on sand eels over a large area. We had 4 stripers. 3 in the keeper slot and 1 bonus fish. I have to hand it to these guys. They wanted to actively fish, not troll - which probably would have resulted in more fish. They really worked it. So, we emptied out the boxes. We threw everything - I don't limit myself and more importantly my clients to any one manufacturer in order to receive a piddling discount on gear - and all four fish were taken on sand eel imitators. The weather pattern through the end of the month shows the best days to fish are mid-week. This bite has not even broken wide-open yet. We will return to the Ocean City December 1st. Maybe the stripers will be inside the 3 mile line by the time they move South and maybe they won't. That's the frustration we have had over the past few years and why we moved to Manasquan Inlet for the beginning of the run. If you want a trip where you have your best shot at a good striper bite, book through our "Mighty Heron Stripers - Point Pleasant" Page. If you need a trip out of Ocean City, book through our Mighty Heron Charters - Let's Go! page. If you are interested in booking an ocean trip out of Ocean City in December, I suggest contacting us first for a report on whether or not we have a fair shot at finding the fish inside the 3 mile limit. This Autumn has been warm and the water temps are slowly falling so we will open up "up the river' striper trips until December 10th and then re-evaluate, based on conditions.
Continue reading