Rack & Fin Radio

The traditional six-day firearms deer season starts Monday, December 9 and runs through Saturday, December 14.

Well, the “Big Tog” crab crunch is underway, kicking into gear the middle of last week.

The general consensus is that there’s two, maybe three weeks remaining for the opportunities to catch ‘n ice keepers, along with the occasional fat cow mama.

With the inevitable arrival of colder water, the bigger blackfish are moving in from the wrecks and structures in deeper water.

Whitetail deer mating season (aka “rut”) is 95% on, and, to put it mildly, the bucks will be love loco for the next two, maybe three weeks.

It’s a striped bass explosion along the northern and central stretches of the Garden State coast, and these are nuclear detonations for sure, going by the sizes of the linesiders.

This week’s blow set the clock running for the last week, maybe two, of crabbing before the crustaceans settle in the mud for the winter.

Segment A of the two-part New Jersey black bear season opens Monday and runs through Saturday, October 19.

The statewide archery season for deer opens next Saturday, and if you have not been out scouting spots, getting bait on the ground and/or getting the trail cameras up, well, get to it!

Two important sets of public meetings will be conducted during the upcoming weeks, topics which will impact recreational saltwater fishing along the Jersey shore.

And they are being pulled big time!

Actually, going deep is now the way to clean doormats and area rugs, i.e. flatties in the 10-lb. and 12-lb. ranges, respectively.

This is the time during the spring-through-autumn fishing frenzy season that we take a breather, and back it down a bunch of notches.

Depending on where you’re dropping a trap or hand line, crabbing has been fair to excellent. As the summer progresses, figure it to hit good to super status, again, predicated on the venue.

In reference to the 1967 #1 pop hit by The Turtles, it’s indeed a happy time when one observes a box turtle in the garden or lawn.

There is no better time than from when you’re reading this through June 22, the last day of the segmented sea bass season, to hop on a vessel and get in on the drop ‘n reel fishing and the post trip tongue-slap-yer-brains-out dinners and fried fish sandwiches.

The Little Italy, Resor, Cole and Triple Wrecks are but a few of the locations loaded with sashimi.

It’s arrived in time for many thousands of bay, tidal river and inshore saltwater anglers to cancel a rod ‘n reel uprising: tomorrow’s (5/24) opening of the fluke season.

The current run of striped bass is developing to be the best springtime sprint in years, be it along the beaches or out front in the depths.

The way the newly arriving stripers and blues are savaging fresh bunker and fresh (and salted) clam baits in the suds as they trek northward along casting distance of the beaches, it’s akin to an out-of-control jet sprayer.