Day 38 DP - New fish on the menu - Fluke, Bluefish and Blowfish

Beautiful day Wednesday - finally!  My day off - and the sun came out.  I had read some very good fluke reports from the past weekend and today was an opportunity to give it a try before the boat traffic and fishing pressure gets too intense.  After Memorial Day it gets very crowded with many boats in the water and  many people fishing.  It is difficult to get the fish to bite.
Dad came up at 7 am and after I made a quick breakfast/lunch with some striped bass, we were off to see if the fluke would be cooperative.  The plan was to head for the Navesink River
by the Oceanic bridge and try there.  If that failed we would explore some new areas and possibly try some crabbing.  As we got to the boat ramp I picked up my bait bucket filled with killies and we were on our way.  Surprisingly, I lifted the killie trap and there were no killies in it.  The bread was all still there too.  I am SO glad that I stayed last night and put the ones that I caught into that makeshift bait bucket.  This is still such a big mystery to me.  Why were there no killies in the trap when the night before I was able to catch a ton of them in only 20 minutes?  And the bread was all still there.  This will remain a mystery but I am very interested in figuring it out.  Anyway. . .
We arrived at our first location at about 8am and started fishing.  It didn't take too long to catch my first fish.  It was a Blowfish!  This is a very strange creature.  They expand their bodies like a balloon whenever they are threatened - they can suck in a bunch of water and fill up that way - or if they are out of the water they suck in a bunch of air.  They literally look like little balloon fish.  Well apparently they are quite delicious so this one went into the livewell and will be part of my dinner.  Dad was pretty excited at the prospect of catching more of them but we didn't get another one all day.
I caught my first fluke shortly after - and throughout the morning it was a somewhat steady catch.  Thank god for the killies - they were GREAT for bait.  Two of the fluke were really nice sized - and fat.  I was using a rig that I tied up and created and it seemed to work really well.  Dad was having a little trouble hooking up but eventually he caught a bluefish and a fluke.  It was a great day to be out on the water and even better now that we were bringing home some fresh fluke.

2 GREAT fish! What a fluke.

I was pretty beat when we got home around 2pm.  I got the fish on ice and tomorrow it will be fish cleaning day.  In total we came home with about 6 nice fluke, 1 bluefish and 1 blowfish.  Ty likes bluefish so I will make him some for dinner tonight.

Two days left.  It's exciting to be so close.  I am tempted to cheat a little because I love breaded fluke with a little cocktail sauce.  I think I can hold out until Saturday though.  I'll just broil a couple pieces tomorrow for dinner and use up the little bit of butter that I have left.

"Discipline yourself to do the things you need to do when you need to do them, and the day will come when you will be able to do the things you want to do when you want to do them."