New Jersey Fishing Reports

Scott's Bait & Tackle
945 Radio Rd.
Mystic Island, NJ
609-296-1300
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Scott’s Bait and Tackle is a full-service bait and tackle shop for both saltwater and freshwater.

Open year-round, the store carries rods, reels, rigs, lures and all fishing gear, especially for the local area. The full array of baits is carried, and so are crabbing supplies, marine supplies and more.

Scott’s web site includes a large online catalog. It’s also home to PennParts.com, featuring more than 6,000 Penn parts. You’ve got to check it out.

The shop’s site is also an incredibly informative source of info about anything you could want to know about local and even New Jersey fishing. Daily fishing reports, tons of tips and advice, and much more are posted.

The staff is especially generous with advice about local fishing.

Sure, sharking takes prep and expense way beyond the average jaunt on a jon boat to the local pond.

Any trip to the ocean-deep requires
a big boat, more safety precautions, complicated tackle, extra bucks for fuel, and so on.

But heck, isn’t that half the fun?

Sure it is.

Still, wouldn’t it be fun to lambast the fish in your own back yard?

Then do it.

Don’t tell anyone, but Great Bay's got sharks in summer.

Actually, most bays along the coast probably do, said Scott Albertson, owner of Scott’s Bait and Tackle in Mystic Island, on the bay.

But Great Bay’s sharks attract a popular, traditional fishery like no other back waters in New Jersey, for whatever reasons.

Maybe the bay’s sharking is just better.
Or maybe its shark grounds are more convenient. Or maybe the locals know a good thing when they see it.

Who knows the reasons?

But tie into one of the bay’s 6-foot
brown sharks, and you won’t care
about reasons.

You’ll know it’s great.

Brown sharks, also called sandbar sharks, fish to 90 pounds, are the prize, the bruisers in the bay, less common than the other big sharks, sandsharks.

But the sandsharks, fish to 4 feet, are also nothing to sneeze at.

The second week of June through mid August is the traditional time when sharks move to the bay from the ocean.

They probably come to spawn, Scott said.

Water temperatures might play a part in triggering the fish to arrive, but it’s definitely about time of year, for the most part, he said.

From 8:30 in the evening until 10:30 p.m. is when anglers catch them best. When the sun falls below the horizon, but it’s still daylight, through the next two hours, the beginning of night, inspires them to feed.

A pocket of 8-foot waters a quarter-mile south of marker 138, where Grassy Channel sort of meets the Intracoastal Waterway, is one specific location where locals look for them.

Such waters closer to the ocean hold the bigger fish.

The anglers anchor the boat, impale baitfish fillets on hooks, wing them out as far from the vessel as possible, and let them sink to the bottom, and wait for the hook-up.

They cast the baits far because the sharks seem sensitive to noise from the boat. For that reason, the shark fishers avoid turning on the radio, and they walk quietly instead of stomping on deck. They hold conversations at normal decibel levels, but avoid excessive noise.

Mackerel fillets are clearly the favorite bait, but other oily fish like bunker would probably work.

The rig is a 9/0, model 3407 hook tied onto a steel, 65-pound-class, 4-foot leader. Nothing fancy, and Scott’s Bait and Tackle actually ties them, packages them and calls them Bay Shark Rigs, so anglers can simply buy them, ready to go.

No weight is usually necessary, but if currents are strong, weights to 1 ounce are plenty. The waters are shallow, and the currents are relatively slow, unlike the ocean, and the rig itself is usually heavy enough to sink the fillet toward the bottom, and that’s where they should be fished.

A 7-foot brown shark that Tom Lutzi Jr., left,
drilled at Grassy Channel in July 2006.
Lutzi and crew provided the shot to
Scott's Bait & Tackle.

Chumming, common in ocean sharking, isn’t a must, but it’s a bonus.

Again, waters are shallow, currents are mild, and sharks with super-sensitive noses will usually locate a bait with no problem.

If chumming is done, not a lot of chum is needed. Scott’s Bait and Tackle sells 1-gallon containers of chum the crew calls the Chum Ball, and it works great for the sharking.

Some anglers will throw the carcasses from the mackerel or baitfish fillets in the waters for chum.

Twenty- or 30-pound-class, conventional rods and reels work well. Thirty-pound line is perfect. But if anglers want more sport, they go lighter. Sometimes they fish a 10-foot, surf-fishing, spinning rod, because fighting the fish on spinning gear is a blast.

The brown sharks are good eating. But like with any shark, care is necessary to preserve the meat.

Once caught and dying or dead, the sharks urinate through the skin,
Scott said.

Sound tasty? No.

Therefore it’s crucial to fillet the sharks as quickly as possible. Not even gutting the fish prevents the urinating. Only filleting the fish does.

Be sure to check the regulations. The catch limit for sharks is 48 inches in length and two sharks per vessel. Browns can be kept. But a number of sharks are prohibited.

This isn’t particularly complicated fishing, and that can be part of the attraction. For once there’s a fishery that’s fairly simple but with great rewards.

What angler wouldn’t want to fight a 90-pound, toothy, ornery killer?

The fish put the tackle to the test, hone your fish-fighting skills, give your biceps a workout, and get you back to the dock and in bed at a reasonable hour, unlike an offshore venture.

The fishing won’t put a mako, the best of shark meals, in your freezer, but its advantages are tough to beat.

It’s a great fishery, right in your own back yard.