Wow! What a great week! The weather may have been hot but the fishing was even hotter, and it seemed to get better with each new day. I started off the week on Tuesday with Rich Hough, daughter Chelsea, and "pop-pop" Jack boating almost two dozen 15-20" weakfish plus at least 40-50 small blues from the back bay on plastics. Then a free day on Thursday gave me the chance to make a solo run out to Barnegat Ridge to investigate the rumors of a hot bonito bite, rumors that proved to be correct when I landed over 30 of the green speedsters in under three hours. Trolling Clark spoons seemed to produce the best action, but red/white feathers and chartreuse squid chains worked almost as well. Friday it was back to weakfishing, with Chip Harter and Buck Buchanan bagging limits of 16-20" weakies plus a bunch of small blues once the tide started flowing out.

To finish out the week, I had George Selph and Bob Keller back aboard yesterday to fish the Lacey Elks Tournament and both the weakies and fluke cooperated to produce a great day. The guys were landing fish all morning, and by the time we came in shortly after noon, the cooler was filled to capacity with limits of back bay weakfish plus a bunch of nice fluke taken from the inlet in the last hour. How good was the fishing? How about 16-18 inch weakfish being "too small" to keep. How about the guys starting to call 15-16 inch fish "tiny". How about the cooler handle snapping from the weight of the fish when we went to lift it off the boat!

I've still got a few mid-week dates left in August, but they are going fast. Give me a call if you want to get in on some of this fantastic summer fishing.