Mickey's Guide Service Fishing Reports

Sorry, I decided to have some fun with this picture from today’s trip. We managed to duck out today before the storms that are headed our way this week. I had Kevin and Gustavio as my charter today and they drove up from Maryland to get in on our September fishery. I sometimes forget how much fun September can be, there’s a lot going on out in the ocean and we got to do a little bit of everything. We bucktailed, jigged, swam plugs, basically whatever we felt like doing to catch fish the way we wanted to. There are a lot of bluefish around (we released almost all of them and kept some smaller ones which taste better), we had Fluke and Weakfish as well. Today was about as nice of a day as it gets with the water and air temps matching at 71 degrees. These guys are experienced fishermen and we got to mess around and catch them the way we like to–on artificial baits with frequent hookups. Good times.

I am not fishing as often right now because I’m very deep into the recording of a new album and that is my main focus at the moment. We are going to fish 5 days a week in November for Striped Bass though. If you have called me about a booking or if you need to make up a date that was previously cancelled due to weather please call me. I have been slow in returning calls and emails because I have been living at the studio for the most part and am on very different hours than I am when I’m fishing. Today I woke up at 5am to do this trip, two days ago I was in the studio until 7:30 am. You get the idea……..Also, here’s a picture of a cow nose ray I was forced to gaff in the wing in order to get my bucktail back. I do have primo dates open for November Striper fishing, please keep trying and I promise I will respond to all inquiries.

Today was the perfect way to end the summer, with the best fishing of the summer! The Fluke were smashing our bucktails the second they hit the bottom and the keepers almost outnumbered the undersize fish today. We had one of our guys fall ill to seasickness and we cut the trip short or we may have broken the boat record!

Archangel 3 Day Report 8/21-8/23

Just got off the water for the third day in a row and ocean conditions have never been nicer. We actually have a window of weather right now that has enabled us to leave the inshore Fluking grounds and go offshore after some bigger fish. The Fluke fishing still remains very good so we’ve gotten to do a little bit of this and little bit of that all in one trip. At the risk of mixing up everyone’s names I’ll just make one big report and say that we’ve been catching some beautiful Fluke, Monster Bluefish in the 13-18 lb. range on jigs, False Albacore, and even small Mahi-Mahi today.  It’s so beautiful out there in the blue water right now, we’re seeing Whales, Dolphins, Tuna busting on the surface, the whole 9 yards. I’m going to get some much needed rest tonight as I have an awful Summer cold for some reason. Back on the water on Saturday, check out these nice pics and video.

-Mickey

I’ve been in San Francisco for a week on vacation, hence the lack of fishing reports. Yesterday I got to fish with my good friend and fellow musician Les Claypool of the band Primus out of Bodega Bay, CA on his ’31 Bertram, gorgeous classic
boat. We had a great day on the water catching Ling Cod and Rockfish and barely missed a King Salmon which we hooked and then dropped. Les and I have been trying to fish together for years on each other’s boats and we both finally found a break in our schedules when we were in the same place at the same time. Also along on the trip were Les’ father and my buddy Jon Weiss. We managed to put together a nice box of about ten fish and the Ling Cod are fantastic on the table. Next time we’re doing it in New Jersey on my boat!

I hosted Dod and his friends on the Skylarker last night for a bachelor party and we caught a limit of Bluefish within the first hour. It was the beginning of 2 very strange days on the water. Also in the mix were Bonito, which always make things more interesting. I saw something I’ve never seen before, schools of Sting Rays, I mean thousands of them spread out over acres of water, very cool. Later in the trip some sharks were milling around the boat, we felt pretty sure they were Dusky Sharks from what we could see. This morning the ocean was incredibly rough up towards the North and it made fishing very uncomfortable for Lizette and Mark, who traveled in from Akron, OH to fish with us. They stuck it out for a few hours and then the sky opened up and completely dumped on us, but not before putting together a nice box of Fluke, Sea Bass, and more Bonito, which were porpoising out of the water all up and down the coastline. Fun stuff on light tackle.

It says “Sea Bass Report” because the only legal sized fish we caught today were Black Sea Bass! I had Jenny and Mark out today for some bottom fishing and while we caught a lot of Fluke they were all just barely under keeper sized. Fishing was actually pretty good as far as the action goes, but the big Fluke eluded us. Thankfully we have Sea Bass season open right now and I prefer them to Fluke on the dinner table anyway. Speaking of the dinner table, Jenny and Matt own a business where they teach you to cook Italian food in your home and they cooked 6 gourmet Strombolis for us to eat and we feasted out today. As an Italian-American I can honestly tell you that these 2 can cook their butts off. Tonight they are eating Sea Bass.

I had Scott, Eric, and Austin as my charter today and it was almost as if someone came in overnight and dragged all of our favorite spots clean of any fish. In contrast to the action we’ve had recently, today was painfully slow. We decided to make an uncharacteristic move offshore to a place I haven’t fished in the last 3 years and it paid off for us. We worked our butts off today to put together a catch for these guys and like they say, I love it when a plan comes together. We finished with 6 keeper Fluke and 6 keeper Sea Bass and a couple of Ling as well. This is after catching barely anything for the first 4 and a half hours of the trip. They each got to go home with a nice bag of filets.

Whew.

The Archangel fished in a Fluke tournament today hosted by our marina and caught 16 keepers including 5 fish that were very big, enough to land us in 5th place overall. Yesterday we did some recon for today’s trip and also did very well. The pictures tell the story. Oir crew was Me, Randy, Mike, Craig, and Rick (pictured with me above). We also caught a bunch of Sea Bass as well and the weather was nice for us with variable winds all day, nothing too crazy though.

John and his wife and college buddy drove all the way from Indiana to fish with us today and were rewarded with 3 to 4 foot seas and a ripping wind out of the NE. We tried to go out early on but it was too gnarly so we stayed in the harbor and caught a bunch of throwback Fluke and Sea Robins for about 90 minutes. I can’t stand doing this but there was no other choice. I finally decided to give it a shot again out in the ocean and one of our passengers ended up very seasick after about 45 mins, but not before we landed a handful of nice Fluke on bucktails tipped with squid. The forecast looks about the same for the rest of the week so I’m cancelling tomorrow rather than torture anyone else. It’s a shame because the Fluke fishing is pretty awesome this year so far.

I have been late with the reports and I actually don’t have any pictures from Wednesday’s trip, only pics from today and yesterday. The Fluking and the Sea Bassing have been great though with a ton of bites and a lot of fish coming to the net. It has been a lot nicer on the ocean than it has on the mainland, once we hit the harbor it feels like a convection oven.

We are eating very well these days anyway, lots of Fluke— limits are pretty much normal this year so far. Seems to me that we are finally getting rewarded for the years we released the fish that were a half an inch undersized. Sea Bassing has been very good too and will only get better.

I have some dates available this month and some in August as well. Give me a ring and let us put some great eating fish on your table!