Val made the paper today!

MissRiss 8/2/2010, 10:26 am

Just readin the paper as I normally do and in the Sports section, I noticed a pic of crab and fisherman and below an article that quotes Val.....

“The crabbing is phenomenal, the
best it’s been in seven
years. There are
6½- to 7-inch crabs
all over, and they
aren’t hard to catch if
you have a trap and
some bunker,” Valerie
Zak, of Oceanside
Bait and Tackle in
Brighton Beach,
reported this week.
“Bluefish work well
too for bait, if you can
catch them.”
Zak is the kind of
tackle shop owner you want to talk to
before you head out to smell that
sweet salt air. In Zak’s world, the fishing
is always good.
“On the beach the kingfish are
showing up in good numbers. Live
bloodworms are working better than
the Gulp variety,” Zak said. “Use a
high-low pompano-style rig to keep
the crabs off your bait. Lots of fluke
are getting caught but mostly shorts.
The north-side on the inside of the
Little Egg Inlet is producing bigger
flukes. Night shark fishing is producing
brown sharks.”
Off shore, Zak said the boats fishing
around the Hudson Canyon are loading
up on yellow fin tuna trolling with skirted
ballyhoo. Blue and white marlins are
plentiful in the Hudson area, too.
Further down the coast, Jim’s
Tackle in Cape May reports a lot of
fish of most summer varieties are filling
the coolers.
Lots of big fluke, up to 9½ pounds,
are getting weighed at the shop scale.
Most of these fish are coming in from
the Old Grounds. The fish are holding
tight to any structure and some
seabass are getting hooked at the same
spots. One boat had a fluke that
weighed in at 9.68 pounds with three
others that all tipped the scale at over
6 pounds. Croakers are getting hooked
at the Point and at the Wildwood
Lump. Late-day rip floats are producing
a few bluefish.
One thing that is a little hard for
me to understand is that, by this time,
the monster bluefish should be
straightening hooks all over the place.
Stay tuned, they can’t be far off.
Probably the best report out of the
South Jersey waters has some dolphin
and cobia showing up on the in-shore
buoys and pot markers. Spanish mackerel,
bonito and (false) albacore are
getting caught in increasing numbers
on the inshore lumps also. White marlin
are getting caught at all of the offshore
canyons. The 40-50 fathom line
is producing plenty of tuna for the
boats sailing out of Cape May.
The conditions were far from perfect
last week, but better weather and
flatter seas are expected all this week.
Antlerless licenses
Today is the first day county treasurers
will accept applications for
unsold antlerless licenses. And, as of
today, all but four wildlife management
units have tags remaining. Units
1B, 2F, 2G and 4D are sold out. But
over 400,000 tags are available across
the commonwealth, including over
100,000 in area 5C which encompasses
most of Bucks and Montgomery counties.
In this, the second round of the
application process, you may still only
apply for one tag at a time. The exception
to that rule is the old “special regulations
areas” now known as wildlife
management units 2B, 5C and 5D,
where you can apply for an unlimited
number of tags now.
Second unsold tag applications
begin Monday, Aug. 16. Monday, Aug.
23 is the day county treasurer’s offices
are open for sales over the counter for
unsold tags in units 5C, 5D and 2B.
Bucks County treasurer Bill Snyder,
his first mate Adriane Nodich and
their staff look forward to seeing all
the area hunters who converge on
their department on that first day of
over-the-counter sales.
If you are planning to hunt in the
early archery season in this area,
which opens on Saturday, Sept. 18,
you should send in an application
early or pick one up at the treasurer’s
office counter on Aug. 23.
If you mail in your application for
the last round of applications on the
first date allowed by mail of Sept. 13,
you will probably get it. After all,
there are well over 100,000 unsold tags
in 5C alone right now. But in years
past, a few hunters that relied on
return mail via the U.S. Postal Service
did not have their tags back in time
for the early archery season.
Also, if you apply for an unsold tag
outside the three special-regulation
area WMUs, you could be faced with
no tag for the statewide archery opener
on Oct. 2. That’s because the deadline
for treasurers office personnel across
the state to mail your return pink
application envelope are not ‘scheduled’
to begin mailing tags until Sept.
27, no matter when you sent it in.
Every year someone gets the short
end of that stick. So send as soon as
you can and then cross your fingers.