With another beautiful day forecasted, Exile ran out ot the flounder grounds again with a group that George put together.  We arrived where we wanted to be just after 8 am.  It did not take long to get on a good bite and we picked up a few nice fish right away fishing in 75-85 feet of water.  We put a few nice keepers in the box early with a slow but consistent pick, then we started slammin’ the fluke.  We caught a mess of throwbacks and a couple of nice sea bass to add to the box.  We moved around a little trying to find better sized fish, but did not find then until it was time to go.  We ended up catching 54 flounder, 10 of which were keepers.  Another fun day on Exile.

Went out today in search of some fluke.  We started off dropping our baits right on their heads and had consistent action throughout the majority of our day.  We picked at a keeper here and there while we were bailing the throwbacks.  Our final tally was 54 fluke caught between 3 anglers with 7 being keepers.  It was an absolutely beautiful day to be out on the water, and the fantastic fishing action was a great bonus!

We went out today with tuna fishing on the mind.  We fished in the central canyons out of Cape May, NJ and were on the troll by 7:30 am.  We had great marks of a few bait balls and it did not take long before we saw our first fish in the spread, a white marlin.  With baits out meant for tuna we did not get lucky and snag this one, nor could we switch it off on our pitch bait.  We had similar scenarios throughout the day, but we did get one white marlin that turned out to be Ro’s (11 years old) first white marlin!  He did an awesome job fighting the fish and got it to the boat in 15 minutes.  After we pulled it from the water for a quick picture (something we do for anyone that catches their first white) we tagged and released it.  Congratulations Ro on your first white!  We could not get into any tuna, but are excited to see all of the white marlin in our canyons, as we are ready to do A LOT of white marlin fishing over the next 2 months.

We had a great group of guys on the boat today that Lionel Sellers put together for a day of trolling the canyons.  Everyone was on the boat and we were headed for the canyons by 4 am.  Just as we did yesterday, we started off with a spread that would provoke just about any pelagic to bite.  We did not want to take the chance to target one species since there have been no large concentrations of a single species.  We were in 78.5 degree blended blue water first thing in the morning and were on the troll.  Things got started with a nice bull dorado that went buzurk, jumping across the spread and tangling two lines.  We still brought that fish to the boat for the gaff shot, and in the box he went.

The action was a little slow, so we kept working the commercial gear and other floatsom trying to pick off dolphin and were successful.  We found a few good concentrations of dolphin throughout the day, and the guys pitched chunks to the fish on spinning tackle.  They really are fun fish to catch, especially on light spinning tackle.  They jump, flip, peel drag, and glow neon throughout the fight as you play the fish to get them to the boat.  We marked a good ball of bait that we worked for awhile, and it produced a nice, 35# wahoo.  What a nice surprise that was!  As we were putting the lines back in, a white marlin came up in the spread.   We had a ballyhoo right there for it, but it would not cooperate and eat for us.  We kept working hard to provoke more bites, but it just was not happening.  After picking off a few more dolphin off of commercial gear, we wrapped it up and headed home.

We ended up with 19 dolphin and a nice wahoo, plenty of meat for everyone to take home.  Frank, Ricky, and Cullen wanted to thank the guys for being such an awesome crew to have on the boat.  We hope you all had a great time.  We definitely enjoyed having you on Exile.

So we set out for the edge again on Thursday to target anything that would bite.  There have not been any large concentrations of any certain species, so we pulled a mixed spread that we felt was the most versatile.  We started off just inshore of our destination and got on the troll.  We had a few dolphin, but things were a little slow.  Sea conditions were easily 4-6 feet, but it was comfortable and fishable on our 45′ Hatteras. 

At about 9:45 we saw a hole behind out shotgun bait, but could not see what bit.  The drag screamed and the clicker was clanking so much that it broke on our brand new 30W.  After the run, we had the lines cleared and backed down on what ended up being a lethargic fish after it’s initial run.  We then thought it was a Mako the way it was coming in so easily on top after a screaming run.  The fish was about 35 feet behind the boat when it showed itself.  A 400+ pound blue marlin began its series of leaps coming right at the boat.  After Frank gunned the boat forward to avoid having the fish go in the boat, it greyhounded away.  We were all in awe, and John Randolph was strapped in for the fight of his life.  We got the release in about 20 minutes, but we wanted to stick a tag in the big marlin.  It made a few more impressive, blistering runs just to let us know it was in charge.  Unfortunately after 50 minutes, and added drag, the 130# leader parted due to the chafing from the bill. 

That blue marlin made our day, and was an incredible show!  We ended the day with 6 dolphin and 1 blue marlin release.  CONGRATULATIONS to John on this first blue marlin, and also the biggest fish of his life.  What a fight!  We got some amazing footage of the big blue jumping behind the boat on our HD cameras.  Keep an eye out in our video gallery for it.  I am going to put it together as quickly as I can.

After having good action on marlin yesterday, we were eager to go do it again.  We ran to a different area where we heard a report of a good tuna bite.  We started off trolling for yellowfin in the morning hoping to put a little meat in the box before targeting marlin.  Unfortunately things were slow and we never got a bite.  After a couple of hours we picked up and made a move.  We switched over to our marlin spread and had a white marlin come up, but it just would not completely commit to eating.  We picked up two nice gaffer mahi in the middle of the day, but it was otherwise slow.  At the end of our day we marked a massive ball of bait and just kept working it.  We ended up having a blue marlin knock a bait out of the clip, but it just did not get the whole thing.  As we were pulling in our baits we had a white marlin come up and follow our left long, but it never tried to eat.  It was a slow, and unlucky day for us on Exile, but that is the unfortunate part of fishing, there are those kind of days.  We do everything we can to keep those kind of stories to a minimum on Exile.  Plenty of fishing to come this season!

We have been hearing about the decent number of billfish popping up in our area over the past week, so we decided to get out there and target them.  We ran out to the edge and were on the troll with our billfish spread by 7:30 am.  It did not take long before we got our first opportunity with a double header of white marlin early int he day.  They stayed in our spread for a while gong from bait to bait, teasing everone who was holding a tld with a naked ballyhoo.  After the organized confusion, we had one of the two on!  That white marlin turned out to be Enia’s first white marlin.  We safely pulled it into the boat making sure the fish did not beat itself up, got a snapshot, stuck a tag in the marlin, and released it.  Good start.

The middle of the day was a slow pick with a dolphin bite or two, then we had a white come up on our blue marlin bait.  We switched it off to a ballyhoo and we were on again.  this one was Jeff’s first white marlin.  We got a quick photo, tagged, and released it.  A little later we saw another white staying just on the outside of our spread, but we could not get a bite out of it.  Not long after this we saw a tailer and we turned on it.  There were actually two white marlin there as we hooked up one, but could not provoke a bite out of the other even after a couple of circles.  Jeff brought that one to the boat after some quick boat handling by Frank, and we got a clean release.  The day was just about over when a blue marlin crashed our left long but did not come tight.  Ouch!  We were all a little heart broken on that one.

We ended up having a fun day, and were stoked to be trolling for billfish in early July.  We hope that this means we have a great August and September marlin bite coming up.  We wanted to thanks Jeff, Enia, Bobby, and Jeff for coming out and fishing with us.  We really loved having you on Exile.

With amazing reports of a great yellowfin tuna bite mixed in with some white and blue marlin, we put together a trip and pointed the bow of the Exile for the edge.  We got there and were on the troll at first light.  After a few hours we had a white marlin come up on a rainbow spreader bar.  It switched off on a skirted ballyhoo but did not come tight.  We picked through a couple of chicken dolphin and had two more shots at white marlin.  Both were hooked up and we pulled the hook on both.  Ok, so a little bad luck there.

In the early afternoon we had a big body and a fin come swipe our blue marlin plug and just start dumping our Shimano Tiagra 50W.  No jumps, but we assumed blue marlin as none of us got a great look at the fish.  After we cleared the lines we backed down on the fish and what we had was a nice 150+ pound Mako Shark.  It made another run and became tail wrapped, which made things a little more dificult to get a clean head shot with the gun.  On the wire, as we were inching the fish in, it decided to make another run, and it broke the mono on this run.  What a bummer that was!!!

Soon after we found a large pod of dolphins actively working an area with precision.  It’s amazing how these animals work together to ball up bait and attack.  As we were working through the acres of dolphins we got 4 strikes, 3 of which came tight, and all were yellowfin tuna.  Of the 3, 2 got off and we got one 50 pound yellowfin into range of the gaff to go to the dinner table.  Another tough break, but we got back on the troll hoping to get another cover up.  We weaved through the dolphins again, but no bites.  We ended up getting 2 more gaffer dolphin, then everything got quiet.  The presence of bait disappeared, no life, so we moved around to different areas to try and convince another round of fish to bite, but no takers.  We picked up around 5:00 pm and headed back to Cape May. 

The action was pretty good, but we were hoping to get a few more tuna bites.  If it had not been for some bad luck, we would have had a great catch.  Just one of those days I guess…  We wanted to thank Sean, Tony, and Ro for coming out on this trip with us.  We will definitely get them on the next round, and we are looking forward to some redemption.

We moved Exile up to Farley Marina (Trump Marina) in Atlantic City so we could be closer to that eddy that was pushing into the Hudson Canyon.  We left the dock on Friday at 1 am and headed straight for the Tom’s with Keith, Stephen, Ron, Sean, and Denny on board as our anglers.  We arrived in the Tom’s at first light and got on the troll.  Conditions were not ideal, the water temp was 69 degrees, water was green, and there was only a little bit of bait.  After trolling all morning we were 1 for 2 on yellowfin tuna.  We decided to push up toward the Hudson and the eddy.  We found the edge of the eddy where there was scattered weed and the water temp jumped up around 73.  We worked this edge north and picked up one dolphin in the 10-15 pound range that Ron brought into range of the gaff.  It was dead everywhere we went, no decent concentrations of bait or life anywhere except for the little bit in the Tom’s.  Around 5 pm we decided to pick up and run inside to look for bluefin and setup to drift for sharks at night.  On the troll we found a lot of 10-12 pound bluefish that were spitting up sand eels everywhere once they got into the boat.  With plenty of fresh bait, we got setup to start drifting for sharks just before dark.  It was calm as could be, and the moon was one day from being full, so we had conditions for a beautiful night on the water.  It did not take long to get our first bite, and the action was steady for the whole first half of the night.  We were covered up in blue sharks, catching plenty of them, a dusky, a brown, and also a 120# Mako that made a beautiful jump right in the moonlight.  I could not believe my eyes because the frame I caught in my mind was like a painting; picture perfect jump with the full moon right behind the Mako Shark.  Congratulations to Denny on his first Mako!  The second half of the night was very slow with only a small blue shark here and there coming up to inspect the chum bucket.We started to troll at first light looking for bluefin tuna.  There was so much bait in the area, hundreds of dolphins, and whales all around us.  There were a few other boats trolling around us as well, and none of us could buy a bite.  We got covered up in bluefish later in the morning when we decided to call it a trip and head back to Atlantic City.  It was tough fishing, but we managed to pull together a decent catch of fish (thanks to the fantastic shark fishing we had).  Ricky, Frank, and Cullen wanted to thank all of the guys for coming out with us on Exile.  We are looking forward to doing it again with you.

With the absolutely perfect weather forecast, we made the trip to the Poorman’s Canyon to fish for some yellowfin tuna along with a possible shot at a marlin.  We arrived at 5 am and trolled to the South Poorman’s where we found a huge concentration of bait and lots of whales and dolphins.  Things were a little slow in the morning as we trolled for 5 hours before we got our first bite.  We put a few dolphin in the box before an estimated 250# Blue Marlin crashed our spread.  It exploded behind 3 different baits missing the hook on all three.  That was a heartbreaker! 

Around noon we got covered up with 4 yellowfin and only one managed to get the hook.  We got the one in the boat which was about a 30# fish, and got back on the troll immediately.  After that, we trolled for another six hours without a bite.  We just had a black clound hanging over us on this trip.  It seems like the bite really slowed down in thhe Poorman’s, and we plan to move the boat to Atlantic City this week so we can target tuna in the Northern Canyons.

With absolutely georgeous weather, we took a run out to the Old Grounds targeting fluke.  There have been some decent reports throughout the week of nice sized flounder being caught, and we wanted in on the action.  Water temperatures were in the low 70s, and had a good drift throughout most of the day.  The action was not red hot, but it was a steady pick.  We managed to put 13 nice keepers in the box and had about a 3:1 throuwback to keeper ratio.  Andy Kupczyn caught the biggest flounder of his life.  It measured 28″ and weighed in at 7.5 lbs.  Congratulations Andy.  Beautiful day on the water!

We were all setup with a crew as enthusiastic as us for the shark tournament this season, and we had been looking forward to it all year since it is the first of many tournaments this season for us.  The first day we ran out to the Tea Cup.  We had a lot of life, great bait marks, and a thermocline around 50 feet.  Everything seemed right for a good day of sharking.  We started off with a good run, but the fish never came tight.  The bait came back unscathed which led us to believe the fish got wrapped up.  Our second bite turned out to be small Brown Shark that we released.  Our third bite on day one seemed to be a better fish.  After a screaming run for the bottom, the line went limp.  Somehow the 500# leader must have got knicked on the bite and did not have enough left to handle the hard run.  That was a heartbreaker!

Day 2 we ran out to the base of the Elephant Trunk and drifted over some good structure there.  We started off with a Mako that ate a whole 8# blue.  After a few runs, Tommy brought the fish to the boat for a clean release.  We estimated the fish to weigh about 125 pounds.  We had a couple more strange bites throughout the day that just did not connect and seemed to be small fish.  The crew of Exile wanted to thank Keith, Tommy, Brian, Bo, and Ethan for coming out and fishing the tournament with us.  We will have to give it another go this year.

We had an evening Drum Trip Thursday and again on Friday.  Thursday’s trip had Jon, Anthony, and Sergio on the boat.  We had a lot of action around the change of tides.  We had plenty of bites that kept the guys plenty busy and they all got into some nice sized Black Drum.  Friday night we had Frank Sr., George, Donna, Donna, and Ryan.  The bite was a lot slower, but we started to get some action by the end of the trip.  Ended up getting everyone their first Black Drum and left them biting.  Both trips were a success.  Hope the action keeps up a little longer.

We ran an evening Drum trip on Exile with Sean, Bruce, Tony, and his son Ro.  This was our first Drum trip of the season, and we could not have asked for better weather.  Since we got back from Mexico, I have been hearing pretty good reports of a consistent Drum bite, and we wanted to start our season off right with a few nice Black Drum.  We got setup around the top of the tide and shuffled around once before it turned.  It didn’t take long to get our first bite and we were on Sean’s first Black Drum.  This was obviously a nice one too the way it ran up the front of the boat, around the anchor, under the boat, and back to the cockpit again.  After a fight to remember, Sean brought him into reach of a solid gaff shot and put an 89 pounder in the boat as his first Black Drum (and a new Exile record)!  We had 10 solid bites as the night progressed and the guys hooked up 7, bringing 6 to the boat.  We were thrilled that everyone on the boat caught their first Black Drum and were able to experience how much fun these fish are to catch.  Congratulations to all four guys on their first Black Drum, and especially Ro who fought 2 perfectly bringing both to the boat (kept one released one).  Perfect evening on Exile.

Well we returned earlier this week from fishing the IGFA Offshore World Championship in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.  The team was Frank Pettisani, Ricky Wheeler, Andy Kupczyn, and Vinny Grasso.  Although the fishing was very slow, we still had a great time and managed to catch a few fish.  We caught 3 striped marlin and a 45# wahoo in the tournament which got us an 8th place finish.  We also did a little inshore fishing for roosterfish and brought a few of those to the boat as well.  It was an amazing experience getting to meet other fishermen from all over the world.  There is a video of our experience from Cabo in the making, and will be completed within the next week or two.

We have been working on a lot of upgrades on Exile this Spring to get her ready for a long hard fishing season.  Everything is in place and ready to go!  We managed to get out fishing for striped bass in April with some success.  We got in on the tail end of the bite, but enjoyed catching good number of bass in the mid 30″ range.

We have been preparing for the IGFA Offshore World Championship in Cabo San Lucas as well.  We will be leaving to go there this Friday the 7th and the tournament days are Monday the 10th - Thursday the 14th.  We got the invite from being named “Grand Champions” in the 2009 2nd Annual Tuna Stakes in Atlantic City, NJ.  Wish us luck as we are representing the United States.  After the World Championship we will be back in action and ready to catch Black Drum and soon enough some Makos, Threshers, and Blue sharks.  Who knows, maybe we will even get lucky and see an early season eddy in the canyons that will hold some yellowfin tuna.  We will keep you posted…

This has been a tough month with consistent 20-25 knot winds (and worse) along with fluctuating temperatures.  We have had to cancel a lot of trips, and have not had the opportunity to make them up unfortunately.  We lucked out and got a one day weather window to slip out yesterday, so Frank and I (Ricky) took it.  We went out for a short private trip to look around for some striped bass.  We had to run all of the way to the DE side to find the fish.  The fishing was not bad at all with a fair pick of good sized fish.  Our largest of the day measured 38 inches!  We were happy to see that the fish are still around.  If I am not able to add a report ahead of time, I just wanted to say Happy Holidays to everyone.  Stay warm, and have fun in all of the snow!

We had Sean, Denny, Tony, and Frank fishing with us today on Exile.  It was a beautiful, sunny day with wind that diminished throughout the day.  The morning started off a little slow, but we got into a decent pick of fish towards the end of the incoming tide.  We were getting bites almost every drift for a bit until the tide died out.  We managed to put two keepers in the box along with a good number of throwbacks.  Once the tide changed we found a phenominal bite that lasted about 30 minutes before the water dirtied up.  We were getting covered up pretty good and those 30 minutes made the day for sure.  The fish were eating anything you threw at them.  Our anglers were able to put 2 more keepers in the box as well as catch quite a few fish on bucktails.  We ended the day catching a total of 26 striped bass.  The crew of Exile wanted to thank Sean, Denny, and Tony for getting out with us again.

After two days of heavy winds, we were wondering what we should expect today.  We put together a game plan,  stuck to it, and it paid off well today!  It’s nice when things go that way.  We had Ed Hook’s charter on the boat for the day, and they were looking to catch some striped bass with us.  We made our way out with the sun rising and calm conditions (which are rare these days).  The sun rising beside the Cape May Point Lighthouse is a sight that never gets old.

We setup in our first location we wanted to check out and had amazing marks.  We thought we were hallucinating.  Well, we weren’t.  Everyone on the boat was getting bit by stripers for the next two hours.  It was red hot action and the bass were in a frenzy!  Once it started to get a little crowded the bite slowed down and we started to look around in some different areas.  We worked hard looking around, hoping to find another hot bite.  We ended up picking at small pockets of fish throughout the remainder of the day.  The guys fished hard and ended up having a final tally of 41 stripers to show for it.  Out of the 41, only 3 were keepers, but the smaller fish sure do make up for their size by giving anglers the numbers! 

The crew of Exile wanted to thank Ed and the guys for fishing with us today.  We definitely had a blast with all of you on the boat, and we are looking forward to the next time we get you out there.

Harry Smith’s group came out on the Exile today to try their luck striper fishing.  We started the morning early leaving in the dark, and were setup right around 6:30.  The first area we fished ended up being full of dogfish, and we did not have many chances at stripers here.  We made a move and set up on some good marks.  It did not take long before we started to get some action.  We picked at the stripers through the melee of bluefish during the rest of the trip.  We had very consistent action, and the 8-10 pound bluefish kept everyone busy catching fish.  We finished the day with 6 stripers (5 keepers), and over 25 bluefish (13 of which we kept).  I wanted to thank the guys for coming out with me today and for having such a great time.  The fishing was just as good as all of the laughs on the boat today.  I really had a lot of fun fishing with all of you! 

So Mr. Weatherman did not quite get the call right as we were met with a stiff 15-20 knot wind out of the NW this morning for the ride out.  This was going to make fishing tricky due to the wind being against the tide for our whole trip.  We had a great crew on the boat that consisted of Kevin, Boone, Bruce, Dana, Dan, and Burt.  We got inot the area we wanted to start with great marks on the sounder.  It did not take long to get our first bite, and we had consistent action with bites for the first 2.5 hours of the trip, a lot of which ended up being bluefish.  We boated quite a few of them and ended up with 7 stripers throughout the day.  The highlight of the day was a triple header on striped bass that got everyone on the boat into the excitement.  We called it a day at the change of the tide and went home with some meat in the box for everyone.  We had a good time, and were able to make the best out of tough fishing conditions.  Thanks to everyone who made it out with us.  We enjoyed fishing with all of you.

Today we had anglers Anthony, Al, Richie, and Frank for a day of striper fishing.  There was a moderate wind out of the NW this morning as we chugged out to the fishing grounds with the sun just starting to peek over the horizon.  The day started off a little slow, but not too bad considering we put a 34″ and a 42″ striper in the box!  We were not satisfied with the slow bite we had so we moved around a bit and tried a couple more spots searching for stripers.  All of the sudden, we found a nice concentration of keeper sized striped bass, and we had a nonstop bite going on for over 2 hours.  We had nice bass and bluefish mixed in that made things interesting, and quite a few bites that just did not quite connect.  The bluefish were 6-8 pounds and we ended up boating 11 nice stripers.  The largest of the day was a 44″, 31 pound striper caught by Al, who caught his first second and third striper with us today.  Richie also hit his personal best with a nice 40″, 25.8 pound striper, and Anthony’s 42 incher weighed in at 26.5 pounds.  We had a great time out there on the water today, and I wanted to thank the guys for coming out with us. 

We had a few hours in the morning, so we tried to get out into the Rips.  We were shooting for Overfalls, but the weather was absolutely nasty with a 4-6 foot sea with a swell.  We tried to stay inside since it was fishable there, but the water was dirty and full of weeds, which is never good for Rips fishing.  We decided to get out of there and run back in.

In the afternoon we slipped back out, but were on a schedule, so we only had a few hours to play with, and not much time to look around.  We ended up getting set up a little later than we thought we would, and were covered up with dogfish.  We had to move around and look at a few different areas, and we managed to catch a couple stripers, but ran out of time.  Came home with meat in the box, so no complaints. 

I (Captain Ricky Wheeler) fished with angler Maureen Klause for the 2# pound line class world record striper on Tuesday.  This was our first attempt at this record together.  It was a little bumpy out there, but the fishing has been good in this particular area recently with the right sized fish.  She needed to beat a 17 pound, 8 ounce striper.  We had quite a few hookups with a couple of break-offs.  We ended up hooking up two double headers throughout the day, and one of the doubles were a pair of smaller stripers that we each got to the boat for a release. 

All of the sudden, one of the setups went screaming.  I cleared the lines as Mo started to play the fish.  After about 5 minutes still anchored I asked her if she thought it was a nice striper.  Her response was, “It’s either a striper or a freight train!”  The fish was consistently running away from us, so I dropped the ball and fired up the engines to start the chase.  We had to manuever around a boat that made things a little nerve racking for a few minutes, but eventually we were out by ourselves with the fish.  The striper took us quite a ways away from where it was first hooked, and it was not coming up.  Mo was patient and played the fish perfectly throughout the whole fight.  The sea conditions did not make matters any easier.  After 45 minutes the fish popped up out of nowhere.  I knew this was our shot and I grabbed the net as quickly as possible and swept down deep under the fish, as it was still 2-3 feet underwater.  By some miracle everything worked out, and the fish was in the net, and obviously over 20 pounds.  After being calm for 45 minutes, Mo took a step back after she saw the fish and said, “Oh my god Ricky, that is the one!”

After we got the hook out of the fish without damaging any of the leader, we put the beautiful fish on ice, ran back to pick up the anchor, and ran into Off the Hook at Hinch’s Marina where Chuck and Mary were ready to weigh the fish.  Once the fish was on the scales, the weight read 23.5 pounds, which easily breaks the record and can put Maureen into the 10 to 1 club as well.  The record is pending at the moment and just has to check out with the IGFA, but what a day!  I just wanted to thank Chuck and Mary for taking care of everything, and I also wanted to Congratulate Maureen on an incredible catch!  If this goes through, it will be her 12th world record, and my first as a Captain.  Keeping our fingers crossed for now… 

We got started early this morning with a beautiful sunrise and calm waters.  Everything seemed as if it was going to be a good day of fishing.  We pounded our first spot hard first thing for a bit and managed to scrape up one striper that measured 33″.  We saw one here and there get caught, but it was not hot fishing by any means.  We changed gears and made a run to get setup on the hook.  It did not take long before we got into our first striper, then second, then before we knew it, two hours later we had caught 17 stripers, 14 of which were keepers making our total 15 keepers and 3 throwbacks for the day.  The bite was fast and furious with multiple double headers and plenty of screaming drags.  It was a blast.  Matt Palmer caught the largest of the day, which was also his biggest striper to date at 41″, 28 pounds.  Congratulations on a nice fish Matt.  We made a quick move to try for some tog.  We gave it a half hour and caught 6 tog with two being keepers.  We packed it up and headed to the docks by 2 pm.  Great day on the DE Bay.  We are very happy to see that the fishing is just as good as it was before the storm.

The crew of Exile went out today to do some scouting.  We were anxious to try a few new areas where we believed stripers would be.  We drove around a lot, but got our fair share of fish catching 6 throughout our short day (which was our 3 man limit).  The average fish have been right around the twenty pound mark, and 20 pound stripers put up a fun fight.  There are a lot of nice fish to be caught out of Cape May right now, and we have been having a lot of fun doing just that.  We have plenty of dates available for anyone who is interested in fishing for striped bass.  To book a trip or see our availability, go to http://www.exilesportfishing.com/book-charter.php.  We would love to get you in on the hot bite!

We had Sean, Denny, Dave, and Rob on the boat Saturday looking to catch some striped bass.  We were hoping to keep our groove going with consistent limit catches of nice stripers in the DE Bay.  We got setup where we wanted to be, and it didn’t take long for the bite to get started.  We put 8 fish in the boat in the first two hours.  The bite was hot and the guys were having a blast cathing these fish as the drags went screaming every time after a hookup.  We ended the day with 16 fish, obviously releasing the rest after our limit was filled.  These stripers are so much fun to catch, so catching and releasing them never gets old.  The largest fish of the day was 31 pounds.  The crew of Exile wanted to thank the guys for fishing with us.  We definitely had a lot of fun, and are looking forward to seeing you again.

With beautiful weather in the forecast, Frank, Frank Sr., and Ricky slipped out for a bit to catch some more striped bass.  We jumped around to a few different places and had a fair striper bite picking up 3 fish in the morning.  All of the sudden, we got an all out bite on stripers all measuring 38″-42″.  We caught 10 stripers in a little under 2 hours!  We only kept 3, and we released the rest of these beautiful fish.  It was a blast, especially when you are catching fish consistently that are that size.  Another great day on the water.  Friday looks like a blowout, but we plan to be out again on Saturday.

The bite has been hot.  Captain Ricky Wheeler privately fished the Firehouse Tavern Tournament on Tuesday, November 3rd.  He and his crew caught their limit in less than 4 hours.  Their largest fish was 51.5 inches and weighed 53.2 pounds on the tournament scale.  That fish gave them first place in the tournament and won the crew $1480.  The fishing has been great, and we are just getting underway…

We got our Fall Striper Season underway on Friday (October 30th).  With some good reports of fat stripers being caught, we wanted to get in on the action.  We decided to look for the fish in the DE Bay while chunking bunker.  We got set up at slack tide, but it did not take long for the tide to start moving, and that brought along our first bite.  We were on!  Our first striper of the Fall season hit the deck, and it was a nice 38 incher.  The bite was consistent through the day but never got to be hot and heavy.  We ended up catching 5 stripers, and our largest was 44 inches, 30.5 pounds; beautiful fish.  We had a few more bites, but they unfortunately just did not come tight.

We got out again this morning (Saturday, October 31) for a few hours.  The weather was a little snotty, but we were plenty comfortable on the 45 foot Hatteras.  Again we tried our luck looking for a few nice striped bass, and we were able to cash in.  We managed to pick up 3 nice keepers (32 incher, 38 incher, 41 incher) in a short period of time.  The stripers are here, and things are just starting to heat up…  Get out there and get em!

We made our way out in search of white marlin on Friday the 18th and Saturday the 19th.  Friday we stayed up north and found a nice piece of 78-80 degree water with all of the right signs except no bait, and few fish.  We picked up a few mahi and managed to raise 3 white marlin catching one that Frank Sr. brought to the boat for a clean release. 

Saturday on the other hand was a completely different day.  We ran south to where we had solid reports of whites and immediately found the fish.  At one point they were on the surface balling bait, and you could see the marlin cutting through the top of the water and free jumping.  It was an absolutely spectacular sight to see.  The guys were doing the work learning how to hook their own fish, which is tricky to do with white marlin.  We started off with a double header at the beginning of the day caught by Dicky and Rick.  Dicky’s fish was his first white marlin (Congratulations!).  We had some misses here and there, but had to work hard to find the fish in the afternoon as the wind and seas kicked up rapidly.  We picked up one more white before the day’s end that Jimmy brought to the boat for a release.

Everyone had a blast fishing as well as spending time at the festivities surrounding the 31st Annual Challenge Cup in Ocean City, MD.  Thanks to the whole crew for fishing with us and having a blast in Ocean City!

We lucked out this weekend and got a small weather window to run an overnight trip.  We started fishing at 7 am Saturday and ended fishing at noon on Sunday.  We planned to target marlin during the day and tuna at night.  We had action right away Saturday morning raising a lot of billfish and catching 3 white marlin before noon.  Action slowed a bit so we made a move where we caught one more white.  After another move we picked up 2 more white marlin before dark giving us 6 releases for the day.  My favorite part was getting three guys their first white marlins.  All of the whites put on amazing shows with plenty of leaps clear out of the water.  Even the bites were agressive as they crashed our teasers and moved on through the whole spread in seconds.  It’s incredible how quick they are.

We set up for the night in the deep in search of a swordfish since the tuna reports were terrible recently, but no action other than chub mackerel in our lights for a few hours.  It’s unbelievable how much bait was around and no fish on them at all.  We got back on the troll at first light and picked up a double header of white marlin right away!  Great way to start the morning.  We had two more whites up in our spread later, but we couldn’t get a hookup.

I wanted to thank Brett, Jimmy, Ron, and Vito for fishing with us, and also congratulate Jimmy, Ron, and Vito on their first white marlins.  We ended the trip with 8 white marlin releases and plenty of action throughout the whole trip. 

We fished Chef Lenny Strobel’s Tournament that he created in memory of his father, and also as a fundraiser for Deborah Heart and Lung.  It was an Overnight fishing tournament, and we chose to fish Thursday into Friday.  We broke Absecon Inlet at 5 am and made our run to the edge in search of tuna, mahi, and wahoo.  We found a couple of white marlin throughout the day catching one, which was Vinny’s first white marlin, and jumped another off.  Fishing was slow throughout the day and sunset came all too quickly.  We got setup on the drift along the 100 line in hopes of picking up a mako and a few yellowfin tuna.

Just shy of two hours into the drift he had a subtle click-click of the Penn 50W that almost seemed like the motion of the waves.  This single click continued here and there for a few minutes, and it was difficult to tell if something was on.  Then we had a slow, but better pull, but still nothing great.  We locked up the drag, and cranked out the slack until we came tight for the hookup.  The fish started off like dead weight and came to the boat in 30 seconds, then the fight began!  Randy was on the rod and knew he had something bigger on after the first run, not to mention the second, third, fourth, and fifth run the powerful fish made.  Randy fought the fish perfectly with Frank on the throttles making the necessary adjustments with the boat.  After 25 minutes the fish was up so it could be wired.  Soon after the leader was grabbed we saw that the fish was a NICE MAKO, just what we were looking for.  Cullen sunk the first flyer in the powerful shark as Jimmy sank the second flyer into the fish.  With a team effort fromt he whole crew we slid the Mako through the fish door and had it!  What an amazing feeling and a perfect time to catch this fish!  Offshore fishing certainly is a team sport.

With a Mako in the boat we tried for a Swordfish for two hours before making a run to the bluefin grounds.  We were setup by sunrise with jigs and sardines, and right away, we got a double header of Bluefin, releasing one and keeping the other that measured 43″.  We caught 4 more bluefin in the same size range and a couple of skipjack tuna on jigs and sardines in 3 hours of fishing.   We made the run to the scales where the Mako weighed in at 185 lbs winning us over $5000 and giving us enought points to be the GRAND CHAMPIONS of the tournament.  That gets us an invitation to fish the IGFA Offshore World Championship in May of 2010 in Cabo!  What a prize to win!!!

We wanted to thank the crew of Andy, Vinny, Randy, Jimmy, and Paul for fishing with us.  You guys are a great crew and we love having you on the boat.  We also wanted to thank Chef Lenny for creating such a spectacular and fun tournament to be a part of.  It truly was a first class tournament and RTAngler did a great job with the tournament coverage on their website rtangler.com.

Day One brought us a beautiful day of weather, but somewhat slow fishing.  We kept busy catching some nice mahi around a weedline on the troll.  We hooked up with a white marlin early in the morning that turned out to be Bruce’s first white marlin.  The fish was big enough to keep so we took it to the scales.  That is always a great feeling to know you are backing down to the scales!  The fish wasn’t big enough to put us into a place.

On Day Two we picked off mahi around a few poly balls while we were on the troll and we picked up two white marlin.  Lionel caught his first white while Bruce cranked in the other. 

Day Three was full of action, but only a few bites.  We marked A LOT of bait in the area we were fishing throughout most of the day, and we raised 7 billfish, one of which was a BIG blue marlin that crashed our teaser twice and would not come off of it for anything.  That one was a heartbreaker, but what a sight to see!  We caught one out of the two white marlin that bit.  The other 4 whites we raised seemed to be plenty full from all of the bait in the area and were just window shopping through our spread. 

We had a fun three days of billfishing, and wanted to say thanks to Sean, Bruce, and Lionel for fishing the tournament with us. 

We fished August 14-15 for the Ocean City, NJ Marlin & Tuna Club Overnight Billfish Tournament.  We had a really fun group of guys on the boat for this tournament, and they were ready to catch fish!  We started off the first day with a white marlin that Andy cranked in for a clean release.  Soon after, we got Paul on his first white marlin which he handled well through the series of leaps the fish made and we got it to the boat for some snapshots.  Randy caught a white a little later in the day for a release and Glenn also got into his first white marlin as well.  We were able to pick up a few mahi here and there and we found a pallet later in the day that held a few nice mahi.  We also had a blue marlin crash our right long rigger but we did not hook up.

The night was fairly slow, but we kept plenty busy checking baits, catching small mahi, squid, and other creatures in our dipnet, and also catching squid one after another on squid jigs which was a lot of fun.  Around 4 am we hooked up with something nice that Jim fought for about 35 minutes.  We had figured half way through the battle that it was a swordfish and Jim brought it up to the boat to confirm!  The swordy was glowing purple, and bronze along its flanks which was absolutely beautiful to see.  It was a nice legal sized swordfish, but we released it for tournament points instead. 

Once we started trolling we had a nice surprise: TRIPLE HEADER of white marlin and we hooked all three of them.  They zipped through our spread just eating everything they could and we were able to feed the whites for the hookups.  It was so much fun with white marlin jumping everywhere and our anglers moving all around to avoid any tangles.  We released Glenn’s second white marlin of the trip first, then Cullen’s, and after a great battle we released Andy’s to end it. 

We ended the trip with 7 white marlin releases, one swordfish release, and a few nice mahi.  We also ended up in second place for billfish points and second place overall points which won us $4000.  We wanted to give a special thanks to Andy, Paul, Randy, Jim, and Glenn for being such an awesome crew and are happy that you had a great time with us.

Going into the WMO we were planning to fish for bluefin and go for the tuna category, but with all of the bigeyes being caught we figured that would not be a smart move.  Instead, we entered a few of the marlin calcuttas and decided to target billfish.  Day One started off with a nice bull mahi within the first 30 seconds after lines in.  We had some action throughout the day with a few white marlin sightings and a couple chances at a few of them.  We were just unlucky that day and jumped off a white and pulled the hook on another under the boat. 

Day Two was a beautiful flat calm day.  The fishing was slower, and we went one for two on white marlin.  Keith Bowen caught our one white of the day, and we got the release right after the fish almost tail danced into the boat.

Day Three was full of action.  We started off hooking up with a blue marlin right away on 30# tackle.  Keith fought the fish well and we got a clean release on the estimated 150# fish after about 20 minutes of chasing the fish in reverse and watching it make a few breathtaking leaps.  There are few things as exciting as backing down on a leaping marlin!  Not long after that we hooked up with a white marlin that Rich Fanucci reeled in, and the fish was lit up the most neon blue I have ever seen a white marlin.  It was so amazing to see.  We raised two more blue marlin through the day as well as a pair of whites right when we got a tuna bite.  We boated the 60# yellowfin and were happy to be taking home dinner.  It was really a fun tournament, and we were thrilled that Keith got his first Blue Marlin with us.  Special thanks to everyone who fished the tournament with us.

On Exile we had Randy, Mike, and Bruce with us.  We started off searching for bluefin tuna.  We were hooked up in the first 15 minutes and Mike, on his first offshore trip ever, fought the big bluefin for about 25  minutes before bringing him in for a clean gaff shot.  The fish measured out to be 57 inches.  We trolled for a few more hours then moved out the the edge in search of billfish.  We caught a few mahi out here, but things were not looking good, and other boats in the area were complaining about a poor bite as well.  With that information, we high-tailed it back into the bluefin grounds to have some fun.  We ended up getting into one more bluefin, and Randy was on the stick for his first bluefin.  After a good 45-50 minute fight he brought the fish to the boat for some quick photos and a clean release.  We measured the fish at 64″, and estimated the fish to be at least 150 lbs.  Congratulations to Mike and Randy on their first bluefin tunas, and thanks to the three of you for coming along with us.  Looking forward to doing it again.

Today we got onto the fish early with a double header of nice bluefin.  Both measured out to be 62″ and were fat fish.  Bruce did a good job in the chair getting his tuna within the gaffs reach, and Tony did a phenominal job fighting his fish stand-up with chair tackle.  He got his fish to the boat and we were able to make a clean release.  After we got both of those fish we ran to an area known to be holding smaller bluefin.  We were looking to get our “under bluefin” which measures under 47″.  We needed this fish for the stringer, and we got it.  Sean put it to the 43.5 incher and we had our stringer!  We also hooked up and boated a nice mahi for the grill.  Great day, and we went to the scales.  Chris Booth, the weighmaster at the tournament, shouted out 51 lbs for our under and 139 for our over.  This gave us a stringer weight of 308 lbs for the tournament which was good enought to give us 5th heaviest stringer of the tournament.

The crew of Exile would like to thank Sean, Tony, and Bruce for fishing another tournament with us.  We always have a great time when you guys are on the boat!

We had Sean, Bruce, Tony, and Frank Sr. on the boat for the this tournament.  Our first day of fishing was tough with only a few fish caught here and there.  We pounded it out, and late in the day we got Sean hooked up with a nice bluefin.  After about 50 minutes we got the stubborn 60″ fish into the boat.  At the scales we got a weight of 118 lbs which kept us in the hunt for the stringer, and we were looking forward to our second fishing day.

We chugged out at midnight in search of a good bluefin bite.  We wanted to see what was going on for the upcoming tuna tournament.  We moved aound a bit before we found the fish, but once we did, we were on them!  The first bluefin was caught by Dicky Wheeler.  After about a 25 minute fight he brought the 130# fish to the boat to start the day.  Next on the rod was Frank Pettisani who gave up the throttles to catch a fish.  After an hour and 10 minutes, Frank got the fish boatside and we released the estimated 160# bluefin.  I (Ricky) got to get on a nice bluefin and release it as well along with Cullin Wright.  Both of our fish were right around the 125 mark.  Great day with plenty of action on big fish.

We chugged that night to the canyons and started trolling for yellowfin at first light.  We caught about a dozed throwbacks and all the skipjack tuna you wanted.  We were able to find a lonely 40# yellowfin on a naked ballyhoo to get into the boat.  Later on we got another keeper, again at about 40 lbs as well as a few mahi.  The most exciting part of the day was when a blue marlin crashed one of our teasers.  We were ready for him and pitched two different baits at him, but he was not interested in eating.  It was such a dissapointment, but at the same time an amazing sight to see.  It was a great trip full of action and plenty of sights such as whales and dolphins everywhere in the canyons.  The sea life you see on these trips is simply breath-taking to see.

Went out today with just three of us (Frank Sr., Vinny, and myself ).  Had a perfect day as far as weather is concerned for a day of flounder fishing.  We started off the day right on top of the flounder and stayed right with them throughout the day.  We ended up catching over 60 flounder, 15 of which were keepers.  13 of those keepers broke the 20 inch mark and our largest fish measured up at 27 inches.  What a trip; it was one of those days where you couldn’t do anything wrong.

At the last minute we threw together a Bluefin Tuna Trip despite the forecasts.  We got out there around first light with a beautiful sunrise and 4-6 foot seas.  Nick and his son Jake took care of the first bluefin and we put it on the deck measuring in at 43″.  Good way to start the day.  We saw schools of bluefin cruising in the waves on the surface a few times, and WOW, what an awesome sight that is to see.  It’s amazing how a school of 20, 40-50 pound fish make all of the same movements in unison.  Some of our fishermen on the boat started to feel sick, so we got one more bluefin at the same size as the first, released it, and called it an early day.  Not a bad way to start up the bluefin season!

With many great reports of consistent fluke action, we made our way out to the fishin grounds looking for good numbers of summer flounder.  We had 3 guys fishing on Exile and we all were looking to catch some doormats.  We cruised right through the bumpy seas we had in the morning and were setup around 7:30 am.  We got onto the bite right away and started picking through the sea bass and small flounder coming up with a keeper here and there until Frank Sr. put a nice 26.5″ in the boat.  It was a beautiful lookin flounder; thick and full of meat!  By the time we pulled our lines up in the early afternoon to go home, we had put 11 keepers in the boat with about a 4:1 throwback to keeper ratio for the day. 

It finally seems as if summer has arrived.  The weather was absolutely beautiful for a day of flounder fishing, and what a relief it was to have sunny skies and warm temps after the past 3 weeks we have had.  The crew on the boat today was Frank, Carmen, Ed, and Ricky.  We went out searching for some of the nice sized flounder that we caught Saturday afternoon.  It was so calm that our drift was slowwww.  We were still able to pick at the sea bass and flounder throughout the day catching a keeper here and there.  We ended up with 8 sea bass and 12 flounder in the box.  It turned out to be a great day on the water.  Hope this weather keeps up for the rest of the season!

Saturday June 27th: With reports of a few larger yellowfin in the Southern Canyons we decided to make the run there.  The bite ended up being slow to nonexistent down there for everybody, but we were able to work up 4 bonita and get a multiple hookup on 3 small yellowfin tuna.  We had quite a bit of life with whales and dolphins around, but it just was not looking good.  We ended up running inshore in the early afternoon to fish for some of the flounder that have been biting lately.  The bite was HOT and we caught plenty of flounder and sea bass to keep busy for a couple of hours.  We ended up with some nice size flatties in the box and then called it a day. 

Friday June 26th: We left at midnight and ran out to the Canyons in search of yellowfin tuna.  We were excited to be making our first run to the canyons and wanted to start off the season right.  After searching for our first bite, we ran into a load of bonita and kept getting knockdowns from them throughout most of the day.  We had a nice hit on the right long that turned out to be a keeper yellowfin.  Shortly after we hooked up a bonita and watched it get exploded on by a mako shark.  It was a really awesome sight.  There was life everywhere.  Lots of whales and dolphins along with birds picking on the surface. 

We took some time in the middle of the day to try deep dropping for some tilefish.  After a couple of hours we picked up 15 tilefish and decided to get back to the troll.  After a few hours we found a nice temperature break and one of the biggest rips I have ever seen in the canyon.  We were getting covered up by small yellowfin, bonita, and even had two nice 20# class mahi.  One of the mahi put on an impressive show of his leaping skills and was able to throw the hook.  We ended up with 8 yellowfin (1 keeper), 1 nice mahi, lots of bonita, and 15 tilefish.  What a fun day.  The crew of Exile wanted to thank Sean, Tony, Denny, and Dave for fishing with us on Exile and can’t wait to see you again.

We have run 3 Trips since Wednesday. On the first trip we left Wednesday morning and ran south. We were looking for some bluefish to catch for bait for the up and coming South Jersey Shark Tournament, but we could not find any. So we got set up and fished for sharks. We fished the whole afternoon and night catching 6 blue sharks and 4 makos up to 175 lbs. It was a great trip with lots of actions on sharks over 100 pounds.  Also, catching 4 Makos on one trip was absolutely stellar, especially when you see the amazing show of speed and power these fish have when they peel line off of your reel so fast then jump 8 feet out of the water. We had all kinds of bites from these fish from the screaming runs to the hand fed shark right up at the boat.

Friday was Day One of the tournament and we ran back to where we were the day before only to find the water temperature had jumped up 3.5 degrees making it much warmer than your normal sharkin’ temps. We got the frustrating skunk on Day One.

Day Two we ran north and found better waters. We ended up with 5 blue sharks up to about 180 pounds. We had some fun playing with these fish as many came right up to the boat for a meal. They look so amazing in their element,  and it is fun to watch everything from the pitch to the bite and then the hookup with these fish.

The crew of Exile wanted to thank Sean, Bruce, Chuck, and Tony for fishing the tournament with us, and we are looking forward to seeing you on the next one.

With the hit or miss reports lately we decided to go looking for some flounder today out in the DE Bay.  After a quick rain shower, it turned out to be a flat calm day with warm temps and sunny skies.  We fished the second half of the outgoing and the first part of incoming today.  At low tide we had a water temperature of 70 degrees.  It was a slow but steady pick on the fish thorughout the day.  Our final tally was 26 summer flounder, 6 of which made it to the box.  Beautiful day on the water and good fishing, what more could we have asked for.

John Tsapis put together a fun group for a Drum fishing charter.  He wanted to get in on the New Moon Drum bite, and WOW, did we have one!  We started the trip lookin for stripers.  No luck there so we moved on to get in on some action with Black Drum.  We found an area we liked and got ourselves set up.  We didn’t wait long before we got our first fish on.  After that it was fast and furoius and we were getting double, triple, and even a quadruple header and one point.  It was red hot action with everyone catching their fill of nice black drum from 30 to 80 pounds.  The average seemed to be fish in the 50 pound range.  The crew decided to keep 10 fish and we released the other 6.  It was one of those trips many dream about.  Lots of laughs and phenominal fishing!!!  The crew of Exile wanted to thank John, Vince, Nick, Antony, Carmine, and Johnathan for fishing with us.  Looking forward to next time…

Bob Dyas got his group together to give Drum fishing another shot.  We had beautiful weather again today and were hoping to repeat the good bite we had the night before.  Things started off a little slow with nothing but junk fish, but then we slammed two nice Drum fairly quick.  After that we had a bit of a lull so we picked up to go look around in some different areas.  After we reset, we got into our third Drum of the evening that was about 40 lbs.  Soon after, Bill got himself into a nice Drum that ran him up around the bow of the boat and kept running under the boat whenever it had the opportunity.  After a long fight and a great team effort, Bill was able to put the nice 56 pounder on the deck to end us with another fun trip on Exile.  I don’t think that is a fish that Bill will be forgetting anytime soon. 

So we started off the weekend right catching 5 drum from 30 to 59 lbs.  Even with all of the boats, it seems the drum bite was still great.  We had perfect weather and a fun crew on the boat for this trip, and we could not have asked for much better fishing.  Shep and Bob both caught thier fair share of nice Black Drum, and especially Bob who boated a 59 pounder after a 20 minute fight.  We left to go into the dock right around dark with everyone smiling.  The crew of Exile wanted to thank Shep, Bob, and Jerry for coming out with us on this trip.  We enjoyed having you on the boat.

We went out this morning with our sights set on fishing for Black Drum and also an attempt for some stripers.  On the boat was Frank, Ricky, Frank Sr, and Jeff.  We tried for a short period of time for stripers, but things just did not seem promising, so we decided to switch gears and go for Drum.  After we were setup, Jeff and Frank Sr were hooked up on a double header of Drum.  They got both fish into the boat, and Jeff had his first Black Drum in no time.  Frank Sr’s fish was the biggest of the day at 48.8 lbs.  NICE FISH Frank!  Soon after they were into another double header again.  We released one and kept one.

The action was fairly consistent for the 3 hours we fished for Drum, and our final tally was 9 fish.  We kept 4 and released the rest.  What a fun morning, and we could not have asked for better weather.  Congratulations Jeff on your first Black Drum along with the other two you caught today. 

We had John and Anthony along with us today in search of their first Black Drums.  We waited for a storm system to pass through our area before we left the dock.  After the storm passed on through, we had beautiful, calm and sunny skies inviting us to go fishing.  We got set up and it wasn’t 15 minutes before John was hooked up with his first Drum.  After a good fight, he brought the fish boatside where we netted it.  There’s nothing like the smile from someone who catches their first fish that they have been chasing.  It makes everyone smile when you see that, and John certainly had that smile. 

After that, we had a bit of a lull and had to look around quite a bit for some Drum while picking through a lot of junkfish.  Later in the evening Anthony got hooked up with his first Drum and got it into the boat.  John managed to wrangle one more nice Drum into the boat before the trip was over.  A trip that started off as downpour and lightning at the dock turned out to be a trip with great weather, calm seas, a beautiful sunset, and some nice Black Drum.  The crew of Exile wanted to thank John and Anthony for fishing with us, and we are looking forward to having you on Exile again. 

We had our first opportunity to get out and try for some Black Drum today.  The weather was far from ideal, but it was fishable, so we gave it a shot.  We got setup around 7 am with some scattered showers and winds blowing much harder than had been forecasted, but we were plenty comfortable on Exile and ready to dunk some clam in the water.  We ended up with a steady pick on the drum while we were there.  These brutes gave us plenty of fun fights.  Drum really are a blast to catch!  When we had picked up the hook to leave around 10:30 am we had caught 8 drum between the three of us.  We only kept enought to eat and released the rest.  Couldn’t ask for anything better on a quick trip for drum in the DE Bay. 

We splashed Exile back into the water on Thursday, and are ready for the 2009 season.  We wasted no time and got back into fishing on Friday, April 10th.  We had decent reports of a good striper bite, so we wanted to be a part of it.  It was a beautiful morning with a light breeze and the sun peeking up over the horizon.  Nothing like being back out on the water again.

We did some prospecting in the morning and then found the fish by mid-day.  Once we got on them, we had a steady pick of nice stripers in the 22″-35″ range.  We limited out fairly quickly and before I knew it, we had caught 29 stripers.  What a great way to start the 2009 fishing season.  We are ready for more!

We went out looking for stripers again today, but with much nicer weather than yesterday.  We got out around 8 am with the incoming tide starting to creep in.  We were able to pick at some stripers here and there, but the bite did not really turn on until about 11 am when the tide filled in a little more.  We started getting a lot of bites and when all was said and done at 1 pm, we had caught 23 stripers with only two anglers in the boat.  It was another fun day of fishing on the EXILE.

The crew of Exile and a friend went out privately today to do an a.m. trip for stripers.  It was very windy and rough today which made fishing difficult.  We picked through some stripers here and there, and then had a good frenzy at the end of the incoming tide.  Our final count for the day was 22 stripers, but we only picked up one keeper.  Bigger fish were tough to find today.  We will have to see what tomorrow brings. 

I had a great group of guys on the boat with me today ready to get into some striper action.  The morning was a bit cold and choppy, but it did not take long for the sun to warm things up and the wind to drop out making for a beautiful December day.  We had to search a bit to find where the fish were congregated, but once we were on them we had a steady pick for a couple of hours until the end of the tide.  The outgoing tide did not produce as well today, but the crew was able to pick up 4 keepers out of the 21 stripers they caught.  Great group of guys, beautiful day, and some fish on the ends of the lines.  What more could you ask for?!  The crew of Exile would like to thank Harry for putting this trip together, and also thank the guys as well for enjoying a day out on the water with me.  Hope you all had as much fun as I did.

We had a group of great people on the boat today so we knew we were going to have a good time.  We had the livewell full of spot, a bucket of eels, and a few spinning rods rigged and ready with artificials.  We got into the Rips at sunup and had to look around a bit, but once we got on the fish we stayed busy for quite a while.  We were able to rack up a total count of 25 stripers today, 7 of which were keepers.  The bite died off a bit in the middle of the day, but other than that, the bite was pretty hot.  I just wanted to thank Sean, Denny, Penny, Rick, and Dicky for enjoying another day of fishing with us.

Finally after numerous days of high winds we were able to get a shot at catching some linesiders.  With a livewell full of spot, we had our sights set on the Rips.  Our anglers were Brian, Jonathan, Frank Sr., and Richie.  It was a very frigid morning, but it’s not so bad when you have a heated cabin to hide in for the ride out.  We tried a few spots before we got on the fish really well.  After that we had consistent action until the tide ran out.  We had a good tally at that point.  We searched around a little bit and got on a few more fish once the tide changed.  We were able to find a couple of keepers this time around and called it a day.  The final catch count for the day was 27 stripers.  Definitely a fun day with a lot of action!  The crew of Exile just wanted to say thanks to Brian and Jonathan for fishing with us.  We enjoyed having you on the boat catching fish. 

It was a misty and foggy morning as we steamed out to start our day fishing the Rips; our target, striped bass.  It did not take long to get on the fish and we stayed on them throughout the day.  We had four anglers along the transom of the boat literally hooking up one fish after another.  The bite was red hot, and the crew of Exile kept its anglers on the fish!!!  We were bailing stripers left and right that I could not keep track of our actual count for the day.  I had to check the video to get an accurate tally. 

We were limited out on keeper stripers by 11:15 am, but kept playing the game of catch and release for the rest of the day.  We setup for a quick chunk bite before dark and caught another 3 stripers that measured in the mid 30 inch range.  Thanks to our 4 anglers Frank, Sean, Bruce, and Brian for fishing with us.  It was one of those days that you dream about.  It’s a beautiful thing when dreams come true.

If you want to get in on the action, we have dates available for striper trips through December.  Contact us via phone or email with any questions or trip requests.  We would love to get you in on some hot striper action.  You can also check for available dates, and book a trip, by going to our booking page (button at top right corner of this page).

We had Frank Sr, Dicky, Fred Sr, and Fred Jr fishing with us today for the North Wildwood ELKS Tournament.  We had some wind throughout the early am with scattered showers throughout the day, but that didn’t stop us from catching some nice striped bass.  That’s the beauty of fishing on a 45 foot Hatteras, you can hide out from the elements in the dry, heated cabin and have a nice warm meal.  We were able to pick up four nice stripers throughout the day while chunking in the DE Bay.  The fish ranged from 36 to 40 inches with the largest weighing in at 28.1 lbs.  That was good enough to take 2nd place in the ELKS Striper Tournament and was worth $1000 in prize money!  The crew of Exile would like to thank our anglers for fishing with us.  We enjoyed having you on the boat.

Today we had Frank, Rick, Dicky, Sean, and Bruce fishing the ASA Striper Tournament with us.  We lucked out this year and had absolutely georgeous weather.  Could not have asked for a better day.  “Lines in” for the tournament was at 7 am and it wasn’t even 15 minutes before we had a double header of stripers hooked up.  We boated both fish, one measuring 37″ and the other 43″, 32 lbs.  Both nice fish.  Not long after that we were on another fish, this one measuring 39″.  We were able to keep this rhythm going all day catching fish throughout every hour.  It was phenomenal striper fishing.

At 3:30 pm we brought our lines in to take our fish to the weigh-ins.  We caught 25 stripers, all of which were keepers except for one, and kept our limit.  All other fish were released and kicked away to bend a rod another day.  We had 4 fish over 30 pounds and 8 fish over 40 inches.  The tournament had 47 boats that fished it.  You would weigh in your two largest fish and the total number of pounds was your score.  We had a 32 and a 34 pounder as our two largest.  Those fish put us in the money of a top ten payout tournament.  We ended up taking 6th place and winning about $350.  It was an amazing day of striper fishing, and everyone on the boat had their fill of reel screaming, rod bending striped bass.

Today we had Sandy and Brian come out with us for a DE Bay Striper Trip.  Turned out to be a beautiful morning, and the fishing was just as nice.  We had some good action in the Rips in the morning and caught a couple nice striped bass.  We moved up into the bay to setup for some chunkin. 

It didn’t take long before we had a screamer.  The fish tapped and then screamed the reel.  Brian set the hook and was locked in for the fight of his life.  The big striper went from one side of the boat to the other in no time, making multiple runs while peeling drag.  Then the fish ran under the boat.  Brian had to walk around the boat to avoid losing the fish on the running gear.  He then got the fish boatside and into the net.  It turned out to be a mammoth 47″, 43.5 # Striped Bass.  Thank you to Sandy and Brian for fishing with us, and Congratulations Brian on an excellent catch!

We went out for a quick morning trip in search of stripers.  After finishing a great tournament this past weekend, we wanted more!  We limited out on stripers in an hour with three guys on the boat!!!  After we got our limit, and the tide slacked up, we all went inside to watch the footage that our cameras captured of us catching the fish while eating a nice warm lunch.  It doesn’t get much better than that!  The stripers are here!!!  Here are a couple pictures of our catch.  The biggest was 41.5″ and weighed 24.6 lbs.

Saturday turned out to be a fairly nasty day with wind blowing out of the SE at 15-25 gusting to 30.  Lucky for us, we are a 45′ Customized Hatteras, and were comfortable as could be in the 4-6 foot slop.  We had wind against the tide during all of our fishing time which made fishing very tough.  We fished in the DE Bay and chunked for stripers.  We caught two qualifying fish, but just could not quite get the third fish we needed to fill our stringer.  We needed that third fish to take 1st Place.  We ended the day at the scales with a 34.24″, 15.3 pound striper and a 35.25″, 16.6 pounder. 

We made big money by tournament standards finishing 2nd Place Overall with 101.8 total pounds for the tournament!  We also had the Daily Culcutta from Friday, which was for the biggest fish of the day, and also the Calcutta for the Biggest Fish of the tournament (the 33.2 pounder from yesterday).  This all added up to a winning of $4025!!!  We all had a lot of fun fishing this tournament, and were excited to start off our striper season like this!  The action is just starting to heat up.

Friday was actually Day 2 of the Tournament, but you get to choose your 2 out of 3 days and we decided to make Friday our first.  We started off going to the Rips in the DE Bay right away.  It was a beautiful morning, and the light hitting the clouds from the sun below was an amazing sight.  We worked through the Rips pretty hard and managed to get a few bites.  We cashed in on three nice fish, all of which were tournament qualifiers (had to be larger than 34″ to qualify). 

By about 11:00 we made our move up the bay to set anchor and chunk.  We were not able to get any bites for our remainder of fishing time and took our three fish back to the scales.  The sizes on the fish were 36.5″, 15.7 lbs; 38″, 21 lbs; and 43.5″, 33.2 lbs.  The 33.2 pounder was the biggest fish of the day and won us the daily calcutta.

Exile set out at 2 am on Sunday, October 5, and pointed the bow towards the Southern Canyons.  The weather was absolutely beautiful throughout the whole trip.  We started trolling at sunup and within 20 minutes we had our first wahoo in the boat!  Throughout the day we were able to hookup and boat 5 wahoo, 9 mahi, and 1 yellowfin tuna.  We had a few more wahoo on, but the hook pulled on them.  As the sun set over the horizon leaving behind a wide array of colors we got setup for the night chunk.

The first half of the night was slow only producing 1 mahi, but we had some action throughout the whole second half of the night.  We hooked up with a swordfish and Tony brought that fish to the boat.  We snapped a few quick shots and released the swordy back to the deep.  Shortly after that we hooked up with another Swordfish, but his time it was definitely a larger fish.  After running around the bow twice with the fish, and a good 25 minute fight, Joseph (aka-Meatball) brought the fish boatside where it was gaffed and brought into the boat.  We had a few more sword bites, and hooked up with a Blackfin Tuna that Dan brought the the boat for a clean gaff shot.  It was a beautiful calm, clear night, and we were able to see so many stars. 

The next morning we trolled for about an hour or two and we hooked up with a nice White Marlin.  After about a 15 minute fight, and an amazing display of aerials from the fish, Andy was able to get the fish up to the boat for a clean release after a few quick snapshots.  After that we picked up and headed home.  Congratulations to Andy on his first White, Tony and Meatball for their first Swords, and Happy Birthday Tony.  The crew of Exile just wanted to say thanks to Tony, Andy, G, Dan, Meatball, and Rick for fishing with us and being a great crew. 

The crew of the Exile took a trip to the edge with some friends to do a little bit of meat fishing.  We trolled inside on the 40 line early Friday morning in search of some wahoo, tuna, and mahi.  In our first cover up, we hooked up with 3 mahi and a 40# class wahoo.  Good way to start the trip.  We heard some reports further offshore so we went out to take a look around.  Throughout the day we were able to catch a lot of small to medium sized mahi, most on light spinning tackle which was a BLAST!  We were also able to hookup with another wahoo in the 70-80# class. 

We anchored up at sundown to to settle into our overnight routine.  The winds started to pick up and it blew hard all night making it difficult to fish.  We were able to pick up a few mahi, a tuna, and an estimated 125# Tiger Shark throughout the night.  We picked up the anchor and headed home at sunup with plenty of meat in the box.  Successful trip!

Day 3 for us was Friday August 22.  This was also the final day of the Mid-Atlantic $500,000.  We worked hard looking for fish all morning and then late in the afternoon we found some White Marlin.  We raised a triple of whites that looked at our baits and faded away.  That was a heartbreaker.  There was so much bait in this area and the marlin almost seemed as if they were being very picky.  It’s still always a sight to see marlin in the spread like that.  Soon after we were able to get a few more shots and we hooked up with a nice White that gave Sean a great fight.  The fish was hell-bent for lobster ball on the surface, jumping continuously to attempt to get the line tangled into the rope.  After some great manuevering skills by Frank and good angling by Sean, we were able to turn the fish.  Once it was close enough, Ricky wired the fish and grabbed its bill to pull it into the boat.  It was big enough to take the Exile back to the scales for a second time.  Unfortunately the fish was not big enough place. 

Our tuna from Day 2 held its place and we ended the tournament with the 2nd Heaviest Tuna.  That fish ended up winning us $47,540 and everyone on the boat made out well with their shares.  One thing for sure is we all had a lot of fun this week!  Turned out to be a great tournament for Exile.  A special thanks from Frank and Ricky to Richie, Rick, Cullin, Sean, and Bruce for fishing with us.  We really enjoyed having all of you on the boat and thanks for all of your help!  Congratulations to Rick and Cullin on their first White Marlins, to Bruce for catching a tournament winning tuna, and to Sean on a nice White Marlin that put up a great fight.

Our second day of the tournament was Thursday, August 21.  We went out to the deep of the Baltimore Canyon (beyond 1000 fathoms).  We found a lot of life and a good 2-3 degree temperature break with scattered weeds.  We found some dolphins that were working an area and soon after that we hooked up with a yellowfin tuna.  After Bruce fought the fish for about 15 minutes we were able to sink a gaff into the fish and put it into the boat.  Later in the day we had a shot at a White Marlin that came up on one of our baits meant for a Blue Marlin.  We ended up missing that one.  We went to the tournament scales to weigh in our tuna and it weighed 78 lbs.  That was good enough to land us into second place with one day in the tournament remaining.

Our first fishing day for the Mid-Atlantic $500,000 (boat for boat, the richest tournament in the world) was Tuesday August 19th.  We ran north in search of White and Blue Marlin.  It was a little rough with seas at 4-6 feet and 15-20 knot winds.  We trolled all day long coming up with only a few mahi that picked at our baits.  With 15 minutes left before the end of the fishing day we raised a double header of White Marlin.  We hooked up with both fish and after a breathtaking display of jumps from both fish we released them at boatside.  Rick Wheeler and Cullin Wright were on the rods with the fish, and it turned out to be both of their first White Marlin catches!  That did it for Day 1.

We took a little morning trip out in the DE Bay with a crew consisting of Dillon, Jonah, Nate, Don, Frank Sr, Frank, and Ricky for some fun on the DE bay.  We started off the morning right getting right on top of the croakers and catching them almost as fast as we could get the lines in.  Is wasn’t too long before Dillon got hooked up with something much bigger than we had targeted.  After about 20 minutes of fighting with the fish Dillon landed a nice 38 pound Drum.  It was a great catch, and one we never expected which made it a great bonus.

We caught well over 60 croaker, 3 flounder (1 keeper), and many small sea bass along with the Drum.  We could not have asked for a more beautiful morning than what we were given.  Hope you boys all had fun… 

We took out a fun crew of three for a Wed-Thurs overnight trip.  We left the dock with Rick, Mark, and Sean at 8 am Wed morning.  The trip started off fishing for bluefin tuna mid-day.  We were able to pick up 3 nice bluefin in the 90-100 pound range.  The fish battled hard for the three guys on 50-80 pound class tackle.  After we caught and released our third bluefin we made our way out to the canyons and trolled for some yellowfin tuna.  We were able to get into a mix of skipjack tuna and yellowfin.  Before the sun went down we had caught at least a dozen skipjack and 8 yellowfin.

With the weather calming down and the light disappearing, we anchored up for the night in hopes of an overnight tuna bite.  It turned out to be a slow night and we weren’t able to get any bites.  We had squid all around the boat for about an hour around 4 in the morning which got our hopes up, but there weren’t any tuna around.

Thursday brought us a beautiful sunny and calm day.  By mid-morning we found some mahi and had a lot of fun pitching to them with spinning tackle.  By the end of that flurry we had put 15 mahi in the boat and decided to go try for one more bluefin tuna.  Once we got set up for the bluefin it didn’t even take 10 minutes for us to get hooked up.  After a solid battle, the fish was brought boatside and released.  It measured 59 inches.  It was a a very fun trip and we were able to bring home plenty of meat.  The crew of Exile just wanted to thank Rick, Mark, and Sean for fishing with us.  We really enjoyed the trip.

It was another great day on the water today with beautiful weather.  Action was a little slower than yesterday but we still managed to pick up a few fish.  We ended the day catching 3 bluefin tuna up to 95 pounds and had a 110+ pound fish cut off by the lines of another boat who got too close to us.  It was a heartbreaker considering it was the end of the day and it was the fish we were holding out for to bring into the scales for the tournament.  That’s the way it goes sometimes.  Luckily we got into one more fish with 10 minutes to go before lines in and put that one in the boat for some meat.  Overall we had a great week of fishing.  Everyone had a great time and we caught plenty of fish.  I just wanted to thank Carmen, Ed, and Jay for fishing the Mid-Atlantic Tuna Tournament with us.  We enjoyed having you on the boat.

We went fishing for Bluefin again today after having a good fish on and releasing it yesterday.  It was very calm, hot, and sunny making it a great day in the water.  We had consistent action throughout the day today.  Unfortunately we did not get the right fish for the tournament and went to the scales with an 89 pound bluefin and a 49 pound bluefin.  We did manage to catch a total of 8 bluefin, releasing all but the two we kept to weigh-in.  It was a fun day with good action and a lot of bites.  The anglers were kept very busy all day and enjoyed being on the rod with some nice tuna throughout the day. 

We had a crew of 3 again today to do some pre-fishing for the Mid-Atlantic Tuna Tournament.  We fished for half a day and ended up catching 3 Bluefin Tuna and 2 Mahi.  The biggest bluefin we caught was fought for an hour and 20 minutes and weighed an estimated 150-175 pounds.  It was a really nice fish and unfortunately we did not get any good pictures of it.  Either way it was a lot of fun fighting it.  The fish was released at boatside since we already had our limit on bluefin.  The other two bluefin measured at 45 inches and 52 inches.

Frank Pettisani, Ricky Wheeler, and Dicky Wheeler went on this trip to the Toms Canyon where the yellowfin bite was hot.  We made it there by 5 am Monday morning and began trolling for yellowfin tuna.  It was overcast and somewhat rough, but it was fishable.  We ended up boating 9 yellowfin up to 80 pounds by 1:00 pm on the troll.  We had quite a few explosive strikes from the tuna on our baits that was a lot of fun to see.  It looked like a bomb went off in the water when they hit.  The weather calmed down by nightfall and we spent the night in the Toms.

We woke up first thing Tuesday morning to put in a half a day of trolling for marlin.  We ended up in the Hendrickson Canyon around the 500 fathom line with beautiful blue 80 degree water and scattered weed.  At 9:30 am we hooked up with an estimated 250 pound blue marlin on a Shimano TLD 30 spooled with 30 pound test.  Captain Ricky Wheeler was on the rod with his first blue marlin.  After a 15 minute battle, and an amazing display of power and grace watching the big fish jump all over we released the fish at boatside.  We picked up and left right around noon to head home from a great trip of trolling the canyons.