South Jersey Marina will be hosting their annual MidAtlantic $500,000 tournament out of Cape May and Ocean City, MD from 8/16 to 8/22. The Captains Meeting will be held on Sunday, 8/17.

On 8/8 George Pollis of Jupiter, FL weighed a 77 pound Wahoo caught on his 30′ Gillikin. Walt Palmer was the Captain.. This fish was caught at the Elephant Trunk.

The inshore fishing has been hot also. Capt. Clint on Common Sense limited out on Bluefish and brought in a Bonito as well. Slammer Capt. Joe Lehner had 75 Bluefish and 10 keeper Flounder on one of his trips this week.

Cape Queen with 18 keepers

The offshore fishing for the South Jersey Charter Fleet has been hot this past week.

Cape Queen had a nice catch. A 131.5 lb. Bluefin Tuna and several Dolphin. Slammer had a Bluefin at about the same size. Hooked Up II had one a little larger, 160 lbs.

Flounder fishing has picked up this week also. Cape Queen went to the Old Grounds and brought in 18 keepers. The heaviest was 6.8 lbs. Porgy IV registered a flounder at 9.2 lbs. Plenty of meat on that one.

Moore Bills Rob Skillman 169 lb. Bluefin (pictured right)

Liquidity Ed Katzianer 163 lb. Bluefin

Trust Me Jim Foulke 68 lb. Yellowfin

Sea Mistress John Raimondo Heaviest Stringer

For all of the results and pictures at the scales, go to our website,
www.southjerseytournaments.com.

Earlier in the week Don Scotti and his Over the Top went offshore and landed a 121.5 Bluefin.

28.8 pound dolphin fish

Amanda Miller came to Cape May for vacation this week all the way from Queen Creek, Arizona and decided to join her family for an offshore fishing trip on Capt. John Sowerby’s charter boat Hooked Up II.  Since this group lives where there is no salt water, they were not sure what to expect from an offshore fishing trip. They were quite successful: after releasing a few undersized Bluefin tuna, they landed a 78- and 40-pound keeper. But the catch of their day was a 28.8-pound Dolphin. It was the heaviest Dolphin caught this year at South Jersey Marina. The family was overwhelmed with the size and the amount of food these three fish provided.

Capt. Pritchard and his Big Game charter boat also went offshore on Saturday 7/11 and landed six 10-15 pound Dolphin and a 48 pound Bluefin tuna.

Inshore fishing has also been very productive this week. Capt. Pritchard  had the Beards family charter to South Shoal on a 6 hour trip on his Big Game and trolled up 35-40 Bluefish before switching to bottom fishing and then caught several Flounder.

Capt. Bill Bittmann had a group out on his charter boat Top Shelf and over the Cape May reef they caught 41 Trigger fish and several Blue fish…quite a haul.

Fluke caught by Top Shelf

The inshore fishing this week has really produced some nice catches for the South Jersey Marina Charter Fleet. Capt. Bittmann on the Top Shelf caught several flounder on Wednesday and has 10 of them on display in the attached photo. Capt. Lechner on the Slammer also caught 10 flounder that day. Sea bass continues to provide action fishing over the wrecks.

On Friday Capt. Bittmann went offshore and landed 3 real nice dolphin. The heaviest weighed 16.8 pounds. The Jim McLeod group of Ottowa, Ontario had plenty of Mahi-Mahi to share at Fourth of July dinners this weekend.

Yellowfin tuna

On Tuesday, 6/23 Capt. Bittmann took a family out to the reef for a six hour charter. After a few hours of bottom fishing that produced several flounder and 30 Sea Bass, they decided to troll for Bluefish. Within an hour they caught 28 Bluefish. Lots of action and lots of fun was had by all.

The Tuna fish are now approaching our waters. There were incidental reports in the past week or so, but now we have a strong report from Capt.  Sowerby on the Hooked Up II. He caught 25 Yellowfin on 6/24…one weighed 37 lbs (pictured right).

Another sign of warming waters: on Saturday 6/27, Slammmer weighed a 13.6 Dolphin caught by Joe Laird of Gilbertsville, PA. Our 8-hour party boat Porgy IV weighed another huge Flounder this week:,9.8 pounds caught by Rick Moody of Philadelphia.

Do you want to join in on the action? Call our South Jersey Marina Charter Agent at 609-884-3800 for rates and availability.

The Party Boat fleet continues to run daily. The Fiesta targets Sea Bass and Flounder and sails at 8 AM and 1 PM for four hour trips. The Porgy IV is an 8 hour boat and leaves at 8 AM. He has been concentrating on fluke and on Monday, 6-15 he weighed in a 10.8 lb fluke for angler Joe Budetta.

Heaviest Shark: Fat Cat, 590 pounds
2nd: Common Sense, 567 pounds
3rd: Good Times II, 537 pounds

Heaviest Mako: 100 Proof, 232 pounds
2nd: Miss Edna Jane, 212 pounds

Heaviest Blue: Re Joyce, 265 pounds

In an ironic turn of events, the tournament contender Hot Works owned by Paul Rys was disqualified. His crew had great difficulty getting the 631 pound Thresher Shark into the boat, thus causing him to miss the deadline for getting to the scales. This catch would have been the heaviest fish of the contest. There will be an application filed this week with the State of NJ to register it as a new state record Thresher.

Speaking of shark, our 29th Annual Shark Tournament is scheduled for June 11-14 and based on pre-registration applications, it promises to be a great event. Last year’s total purse equaled over $336,000. Mako, Thresher, Blue and Hammerhead are the most frequently caught species.

Our Charter Fleet is available to hire for this and all other tournaments held in the Cape May area. Call 609-884-3800 and ask for the Charter Coordinator for rates and availability.