Well this upcoming week will be light on the fishing for us and heavy on some preventative maintenance including a little work on the propellors, electrical and exhaust systems. We hit the ground running again when the weekend rolls around  with canyon runs, bluefin and eventually fall striper and blackfish trips.

It has been a good season overall with great fishing and a good turnout of new and old customers filling in the dates for us. Book your Tuna trips and fall bottom and striper trips now to ensure you get the date you want.

Have an enjoyable labor day weekend.

Capt. Nick

732-547-5688 cell

732-851-5103 office

Matt Deiner and his four sons joined John and myself aboard the Benchmark early tuesday morning for a bluefin trip. We found the fish a little closer that we anticipated at 40 miles and had fish on almost immediately boating a nice 40 pounder. We continued for about 2 hours catching 4 out of 5 bluefin on jigs, sardine and even a slow trolled slugo before we decided to go further out for the big ones everyone heard about. We ended up re instating the rule of don't leave fish to find more or bigger fish as we couldnt buy a bite for the rest of the day. Either way it was a great weather day for a little exploring and everyone got to turn the handle on a nice bluefin.

Tom Pado and his son Tom Jr. joined us aboard the Benchmark monday morning for a little bottom fishing. After a slow start on the first drop we made 2 more drops for the day and picked up a father and son limit of nice seabass along with a couple token trigger fish mixed in. Great weather and great fishing.

Bill Anderson and his crew were aboard the Benchmark on the 28th and 29th of August for an overnight canyon run. On our way out we made a pit stop to try and catch soem Bluefin and were not dissapointed, immediately after throttling back I had fish boiling in front of us and for the next 1hr and 15 minutes we tagged and released 14, kept our under fish and released another 8 fish or mor all in the 40-50lb class on jigs. It was fast and furious. We picked up and continued to the canyon and after only 10 minutes of trolling we had a short bite and then a very nice Wahoo took a black bart lure, near the boat we had one of the strangest things I have ever seen happen a Manta Ray which was over 12 feet wide became interested in the hooked Wahoo and ended up either attempting to eat the fish or getting wrapped in the line and breaking us off. After that the troll was without any action and the night chunk was dissapointing with only one tuna bite and a few Mahi's. On the plus side we had great weather and awesome bluefin action but the canyon bite was not what it was the weekend before. Pics to follow soon.

We managed to put together an open trip to the canyon for saturday into sunday with Tom, Dave, Tom, Mike, Kevin and mark. We headed out to the canyon under calm seas and arrived to find plenty of life, whales dolphins and bait up to 3oo feet thick. after 3 hours of trolling and no takers we made our way over to the tilefish grounds and quickly put 15 plus nice golden tiles in the boat in under an hour, aftet that we headed out another 7 miles where we set up for the night chunk and picked a fe into the early morning hours. At about 3am the fishing broke wide open and we boated in total 18 tuna in the 60 pound range and must have lost another ten or so. In the morning with full boxes we heade dfor the barn and we are all hoping this is how it will be for the rest of the season. Nice trip.

I had a last minute trip with Doug Finley and his crew aboard the Benchmark thursdsay and we opted for some bottom fishing, i figured after the previous weeks blow some of the wrecks might have had some turnover. Our hunch was right and in under 5 hours of fishing we had almost 60 keepr seabass, 16 ling, a nice blackfish and a 26 inch cod. If we had stayed out a little longer it would have been a limit day without a doubt.

Peter Germinario and his crew joined us aboard the Benchmark for an overnite canyon run from the 17th to 18th. We ended up near the tip of the Hudson where there was a huge amount of life and tons of bait. After a couple hours of trolling the fish began to bite and we boated 2 nice yellowfin of about 60lbs. We set up on the chuink at dark and almost immediately had 2 fish on jigs one nice 50 pounder and a rat. We lost 2 more tuna that night and boated another, released a hammerhead and a tiger shark and lost a sword. At first light we had a quick bite and boated 3 more quality yellowfin for a total of 7 for 9, 2 of which were the little guys. Oh yeah and we did have a token Mahi.

The sales team from Shamrock Tech got together before the weeks meetings and joined us aboard the Benchmark for a day of inshore fishing. The idea was to keep it simple since we had a few land lovers on the boat but after a couple hours of exceptional seabass fishing bunker huge blues and verg huge bass started exploding all over the reef around us. We hooked a few blues while anchored and then pulled up and chased them for an hour catching and losing many. The bass eluded us as they were honed in on the bunker which I have never seen move so fast. A good day and only a couple causalties in the seasick category.

Another group we havent seen in about 4 years was my old buddy Walter Anuciewicz. He came back to fish aboard the Benchmark with us and it was good to have him again. We started off seabass fishing which began a little slow in the morning so we foundsome verg big blued of 8-12 pounds and jigged them non stop for over an hour until everyone had enough. We switched back over to seabass and some ew spots in the afternoon and boated over 30 keepers before calling it a day.

Cheryl Hosler hosted a trip on Saturday for her brothers 50th birthday and 10 years earlier she gave him a trip with us for his 40th. It is very nice to have people who remember us after all of those years. We did a 5 hour trip for seabass and ended up with some ver y big seabass as well as a nice catch for the dinner table.

We had Mr. He visiting us from China and Shamrock Tech hosted him aboard the Benchmark for what turned out to be a canyon day troll in lieu of Bluefin fishing slowing down a bit. We ended up with 4 yellowfin tuna and 2 longfin. We also had 2 whites up in our spread throughout the day and lander some very nice Mahi Mahi.

Tom Ryan his wife and 4 sons joined us for a day aboard the Benchmark and although it was a tougher day for the seabass we caught some of the biggest ones we have seen and even a few nice blackfish in the mix.

Jack Smith and his crew joined us aboard the Benchmark for what turned out to be a very nice day on the water and a mixed bag of Fluke, seabass, a cod and porgy. Makes me hungry just thinking about it.

Joe Fritzen joined John and myself aboard the Benchmark 2 for a day of fluking saturday. We ended up with only a few keeper Fluke up to about 6 lbs but managed some keeper seabass and a really nice 18lb striper caught on a spro bucktail.

George Adelung and his friends and coworkers joined us for another attempt at the good Bluefin fishing we had the weekend before. When we made it out to the gounds we noticed the nice blue water and Tuna we had 6 days before had turned brown and was loaded with Bluefish. After a couple hours I found some really nice water and pulled a nice Mahi off a pot, a little while later a just legal yellowfin came over the side and that was it for the day after that. Overall a nice day on the water and good company but unexpected slow fishing.