Captain Adam Nowalsky from the Karen Ann II reports this is the peak of the spring sea bass fishing. He says the number of keepers is limited only by how fast you can get your line back down to the bottom. 

Some of his recent charter highlights include the Robert Wilson charter with 75 keeper sea bass including a number of 3.5 to 4 lb. fish. On the Safa group's half-day charter some 50 bluefish and sea bass were boated with a 5-pound sea bass in the mix.

Other groups included Zuccarrello with 55 keepers, Preczewski with a nice mix of sea bass and released blackfish to 10-pounds, Tom Siciliano with 75 keeper sea bass, Jim Sutphen with 90 keeper sea bass, and Mike Dahm’s half-day charter, with 20 keeper sea bass out of over 100 caught.

            Captain Adam said there was an improvement in the number of keepers on the fluke scene this week.  All fluke fishing remains in the back bays, with the 50-degree ocean water temp still too cold for a good fluke bite. 

            Captain Carl Sheppard had two good parties over the weekend. On Saturday the Capanna party started with wreck fishing and boated 42 sea bass in less than an hour.  Captain Carl got a tip about a large school of slammer blues in the 10-12 lb range about 22 miles further out. The fish were on the bottom, in 80-100 feet of water. He used trolling valves to reduce the speed to under two knots and used a pound of weight with the pony tails to get them to bite. Action was nonstop for 4 hours although they only kept a few.

            On Sunday Captain Carl had the Tom Phillip’s party along with a couple of off duty captains-Vic Bertotti and Tom Masterson. They fished in 60-70 feet of water and drifted a number of wrecks. They ended up catching over 80 sea bass, but were plagued by spiny doggies.

            Captain Fran Verdi on the Dropoff had an open boat trip on Saturday. He had no luck looking for bunker and tried anchoring at Wreck Inlet for striped bass but had no luck. He then headed for the reef and some wreck fishing. That action was drop and reel with double headers every pass.  For one and half hours they hammered away at the fish and were able to put 15 keepers in the box out of over 50 fish caught.  He did see some pods of bunker at the reef but no bass under them.