EP 74: Fluke Season Reality Check

Fluke season opens and we do what every obsessed angler does: we go anyway, even when the forecast is wrong, the wind refuses to cooperate, and the back bay bite feels like it shuts off mid-drift. This archived kickoff show from 2022 is a time capsule that still holds up, because the fundamentals of early-season summer flounder don’t change. We’re talking water temperature swings after overnight rain, why “clean water” doesn’t always mean “easy fishing,” and how you can watch an area go from promising to stubborn with just a few degrees of drop. 

We get into the real back bay decisions that matter: incoming tide vs outgoing tide (and why we each argue for a different one), what slack tide can do for bigger fish, and how to stop wasting time drifting the middle for shorts. If you want bigger fluke, we explain the structure story: drop-offs, ledges, creek mouths, current seams, and shallow flat potholes that are only inches deeper but fish way “bigger” than they look. We also talk bait vs artificial, including when live bait like mud minnows, squid strips, or spot can separate you from the crowd, plus the Gulp profiles and colors that actually got touched on a tough day. 

Regulations change strategy, especially in New Jersey where you’re forced to think about size classes and tough keep-or-release choices. We also hit practical gear and rigging details like bucktail and teaser spacing, rod action and sensitivity, and what matters most for kayak fluke fishing when you can’t just “run and gun” to the next spot. Stick around for an honest safety segment on dry suits, why we don’t trust the rule of 120, and why waders can make a self-rescue harder than most people realize. If you get value from this, subscribe, share it with a fishing buddy, and leave a review so more back bay anglers can find the show.

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Transcript

The Hot Spot Clue

Ed Gobbo 0:00

I was talking with a friend of mine a little while ago and he said, you know, he cruised all around, went into cooler waters, nothing. He went to he found a hot spot that had like he said 57 it was. He caught his limit. I think he lost one at the boat. So he had two, but he caught his limit.

Why This 2022 Episode Returns

SPEAKER_00 0:21

Hello and welcome back to the Fat Dad Fishing Show. I'm your host, Rich Natoli, and tonight we're kicking it back to 2022. This is one of those episodes that's in the archives, no longer online, so we're putting it back. This is the Flounder season kickoff for 2022. It's back in the days where I had John Freely and Ed Gobo as co-hosts, so it's a lot different. It's a different format. Wasn't quite as polished, not that it's polished now, but not quite as polished as it is today. But the information was good, it's applicable, it applies today for everyone. And as we roll into the Memorial Day weekend, why not kick back and get a little bit more information on fluke fishing? So I dusted it off, I put it back online, enjoy this episode, kick back, relax, and take it all in.

Rich - Fat Dad Fishing 1:09

Hello everyone, welcome to Fat Dad Fishing Show. My name is Rich. I'm the host of this show. And tonight we've got both of our normal hosts on tonight. So let's bring them on right away. We've got Ed, owner of Captain Hank's Tackle. How you doing, Ed? What's up?

Ed Gobbo 1:25

I'm tired.

Rich - Fat Dad Fishing 1:26

I'm exhausted. Uh and then we have John Creely, the owner of Creely Custom Rods. John Hank.

SPEAKER_05 1:33

Uh doing uh could be doing a lot better, actually. So yeah. Yeah, the uh truck decided to break a wheel stud on the way home from work and uh yeah, got it home and found a busted CV axle and uh bad wheel bearing. So yeah.

Ed Gobbo 1:49

Yeah, that's been good. On the bright side, your new wheel bearing will come with new studs. Yes.

SPEAKER_05 1:54

Yeah, there is that.

Rich - Fat Dad Fishing 1:56

Yeah, that's really the bright side.

Opening Day Conditions And Lessons

Rich - Fat Dad Fishing 2:00

Well, everybody, welcome to the uh to the show. Um so tonight we're gonna go through, it's just gonna be the three of us. We're gonna go through just a little uh preseason or now now it's season kickoff because the flounder season is now open in New York, New Jersey. Delaware never closes. They're nuts down there. They just leave everything open. I guess it's just easier. Um, but Ed and I actually made it out on the water today, and we have a lot of lessons learned.

Ed Gobbo 2:27

It was learn, it was a learning experience.

Rich - Fat Dad Fishing 2:29

Yeah, you know, we could go through a lot of that, but um really this is just all about you know preparing for uh preparing for a longer extended flounder season in New Jersey. New York already had a longer one, but I think it starts a week, it started a week earlier than it did even last year. Uh so it started on the first, and then today the second it started in New Jersey. And again, as I mentioned, Delaware is always open. I I'm not sure. I think Connecticut is the same as New York, I'm not 100% sure, but fluke are there. I mean, Ed, we'll get into what happened today, but we can verify the fluke are in. They're here. It just today was a weird day, very weird. Yeah, yeah, it was difficult. You know what, you know what today was? Today was a it was a grind, and you know, it was it was a lot of stuff, didn't go right, but it's still it was still a decent day, you know, on the water, you know, as I and and it I feel stupid even complaining about it. Hey, the winds didn't come from the right direction, guys. What a shock! And and the forecast that said it was going to be zero to three, dead wrong, and then Navionics, which I love. Uh, you know, anybody who's ever watched one of my videos knows I love Navionics, dead wrong for where we were, dead wrong. And and I just did last night the community updates on my Navionics card for the first time in two years, and it was different than the last time I was through that area, but I had never been all the way back where we were, and it was it was not even close, you know. As you mentioned, Ed, where it's supposed to be two feet, how deep was it?

Ed Gobbo 4:12

It was like 12, and then there were like 20 footholds. I was I even downloaded, I have Navionics on my phone, so I'm sitting in the kayak, I'm downloading the newest maps to Navionics, you know, as we're out there, and they're still they should probably send a boat through there. But that's what you were doing?

Rich - Fat Dad Fishing 4:28

I thought you were watching porn or something because it was it was difficult. It's a difficult day out there, John. You you didn't miss a ton. It was me, Ed, and and Ray B went out. Mike unfortunately couldn't make it. He had something come up, so hopefully we'll we'll get out on the water with him. But it was it was a day, it was a difficult day, it was a grind. Caught fish, caught keepers, but you know, it wasn't one of those banner days that you hope to just kick the season off with. It was just tough, and everybody around us was just you know, and I'll say this I've never been around, I don't typically fish near a lot of boats, right?

Shallow Flats Plan And Boat Pressure

Rich - Fat Dad Fishing 5:08

And in this case, we decided it's spring, so we wanted to adjust our approach. It's early spring, and I fished for flounder in early spring just to kind of scout it out, knowing that I couldn't keep anything, and there's a little bit more pressure when you can, and it's actually open day. So we decided we're gonna hit the flats, we're gonna go in the shallower waters, we're gonna focus between four and eight feet, and actually that was the right depth for a lot of it. There were some caught down as deep as 12, but all the people out there, everyone was talking, everyone was cool, everyone was, you know, how's it going? Here's what I'm doing, and nobody was getting a consistent bite. Not even the not even the guides, the local guides.

Ed Gobbo 5:49

Yeah, that was a first for me. A lot of those guys were really, really cool. But it was definitely definitely a learning day. Like we we learned some new spots. We learned or I learned not to eat power bars for lunch. No good. I need to clean out my my uh my drive hatch. There was it was there was some good learning, a lot a lot of learning happened today for sure.

Rich - Fat Dad Fishing 6:13

Yeah, yeah. So well, let's talk about some of the things that you know look, we can just do a regular flounder kickoff, but I don't necessarily want to do that because for a lot of people it's a different type of season, it's a different type of weather. You know, mid-spring fishing for flounder is not something, especially in New Jersey, which is where most of our our viewers are from. You you just didn't do it, you know. You had to wait until what May 22nd or May 27th, you know, something like that.

SPEAKER_05 6:43

It always used to be the third Friday in May. So it's like the 18th, 20th, 22nd, whatever that Friday falls on. It's always been that.

Ed Gobbo 6:53

So we're almost we're almost a month early, so it's it's all new for us.

Rich - Fat Dad Fishing 6:57

Uh which is which is great. I mean, what whatever you think about the regs, it doesn't matter right now. All that matters is we have this season, and the thought that these flounder were not there is absolutely false. I mean, there were there were you know plus 20 inchers that were pulled in, not a lot, you know, you'd go a half an hour with 10 boats and nobody would catch anything, and then somebody pull in a 20, somebody pull in a 15.

Water Temperature Drops And Bite Dies

Rich - Fat Dad Fishing 7:22

But they there were a lot of fish there, and there were a lot of bites that we didn't that we didn't connect on, but the water temperatures, man, the water temperatures when we got there, you know, Ed's like, don't wear the dry suit. And I was like, I probably don't need to. So I, you know, I went barefoot to launch 52 degrees, so it was a little chilly. By the end of the day, when the sun finally came out, hours after it was forecasted to, the water was was just under 60 degrees.

Ed Gobbo 7:51

So I don't even think it got that high. Mine was reading like 54 55 at the highest.

Rich - Fat Dad Fishing 7:57

Yeah, so yours is always way different than mine, and I'm I'm going with mine simply because Ray was was only 0.2 higher than mine. You're wrong. And and I checked on one of those sites with water temperatures today, and it said that it and it said it said it was 58. So who knows? But but I'll tell you what, the 52 was according to one of the captains in the area who said, you know, it dropped three degrees after that rain last night. He was out in the same exact spot, and that that thunderstorm that rolled through up here in Pennsylvania, it rolled through at just before 4 a.m. at my house, which is why I got up that early and just left. I was like, Well, I'm not gonna go back to bed, I may as well just leave. So I got in the truck and just headed down, but it dropped that water temperature, and yeah, the these flounder, I mean, the summer flounder, they prefer the highest salinity, but where we were, it doesn't matter. We were so close to the inlet that the salinity wasn't gonna get impacted by you know those storms. But man, it just it turned off the bite, and they were biting in that exact spot yesterday and the day before. They were throwing back last year limits of you know, three, four, five over eighteen. They were throwing back because they couldn't keep them, and then these same guys are out there and they're not, you know, they're struggling to put together anything.

Ed Gobbo 9:19

Yeah, I think water temp today was that was the big killer. I mean, the wind, we we we got some good drifts through, even even though the wind was not in our favor at all. We still we still managed. I was talking with a friend of mine a little while ago, and he said, you know, he cruised all around, went into cooler waters, nothing. He went to he found a spot that had like you said 57, it was. Yeah, and he was and he had you know, he caught his limit. I think he lost one at the boat, so he had two, but he caught his limit.

Rich - Fat Dad Fishing 9:50

Yeah, so I mean it was it was about finding the temperature.

Ed Gobbo 9:55

I think if we would have had another tide cycle, like if it would have rained and then we had a tide cycle and then went out, I think you know, I think tomorrow is probably gonna be a much better day.

Rich - Fat Dad Fishing 10:05

Yeah, I I would agree, especially for that area, and and just just to kind of frame it out for people, you know, we we were looking flat, so so shallow sounds not gonna tell you exactly where we were, but it's a the the shallow sounds of South Jersey, where the water's going to be anywhere from two feet up to eight to ten feet. Now, this one actually had holes down to 20, but for the most part, the deepest trenches that were in there, and they were like trenches or or small channels, they were about 12 feet, 12 feet, and they were you know a few hundred yards long. And the boats were stuck drifting in the middle of that. Although the ones with the the trolling motors were they were going right up and fishing the drop-offs, like we were. I didn't catch anything that wasn't on a drop-off on a on a depth change. I didn't I didn't catch anything on a flat area, you know. So we were just kind of edging up into the two to four feet, and we were letting that wind and current take us down into the deep. And then it was so narrow though. You uh we just kind of went across the deep part and back up the other side, seeing if we could get something on the rise. But the boats were definitely a little bit more restricted in where they could go, and some of them were just going straight down the middle the whole time, and they were the least successful, just going straight down the middle.

Ed Gobbo 11:21

And then the other the other thing I noticed too, it seemed like the the bite was more frequent on on natural bait. Anytime I saw a boat pull a flounder over, a couple seconds later, you hear a live well lid slam and you see the line go back over the door over the side. So I think today was was a live bait day and not a gulp and jig head type day.

Rich - Fat Dad Fishing 11:42

Yeah, um the now we none of us had live bait or dead baits. We just had all artificial. And the interesting thing is the only I only use gulp. The only gulp that worked were those little what do they call it? The the pink, they look like bubblegum, the the shads. They're not paddle tails, they the grub tail. Oh, the swimming mullets. Swimming mullets, yes. The the smallest ones, those were the the pink ones. That's the only thing I caught anything on today. And I think I caught seven or I I remember six, and I know I caught a couple more than that. And and the one the one keeper that I did end up getting was on that, uh, but not a touch on anything else. Not a touch. John, so early season.

Incoming Versus Outgoing Tide Debate

Rich - Fat Dad Fishing 12:29

I know you haven't been able to go out yet. Obviously, I mean it's just day one. What are you gonna be doing with your tactics in the backwaters?

SPEAKER_05 12:37

I'm gonna wait for an incoming tide. I'd rather fish an incoming. You're gonna get that warmer water, you know. If you're fishing south at least, you're gonna get warmer water being pushed in from the inlet. Probably fish the shallows like you guys were, anywhere from two to ten feet looking for the drop-offs. Because last year, if I recall, we didn't have too much success in the early season fishing the shallower waters. And I want to say that was maybe Memorial Day. And I think the water temps were right around the same as they are right now.

Rich - Fat Dad Fishing 13:12

Last year was weird, but we didn't fish we didn't fish so much the flat because where we were, it was it was mile, it was it's basically a three-mile pedal to get to the closest decent sound. Okay, yeah. So we were fishing the shallows along those channels, and that was just that that was difficult last year.

SPEAKER_05 13:31

Yeah, and I think it but it seemed that we found those fish in deeper water last year, even with the same water temperatures that we have right now. So I I don't know how I'm gonna approach this this year. I have to get out at least once and then determine how I'm gonna tackle it the next time.

Ed Gobbo 13:51

For me last year, I didn't I didn't really fish with you guys too much. I think it was towards the end of the year last year. I didn't start getting into quality fish until like June, and it was more and they were shallow, six six to eight feet. And then once that water, because it seemed like it took forever the for the water temps to come up, once they finally came up, it was it was game on, they were everywhere, but until then it was it was real shallow.

Rich - Fat Dad Fishing 14:19

Yeah, I I usually take the approach that in the when it's the cold water, no first John, I would say if you want to fish the warmer water, it should be outgoing. Should you're gonna get the the warmer water coming off the flats, and that's where that's where we had a five-degree difference today on the outgoing. The last I guess we got out of there. We had to leave actually so that we could get back in. Well, it I had to leave so I could get back in time for this. Which was a little disappointing because I would have felt I I was feeling like this evening probably would have been a good time to be fishing for for some some flounder down there.

Ed Gobbo 14:58

But I'll tell you what though, when I got out of the kayak and saw you and uh Ray fighting that current, I'm like, nope, I'm glad I got out, I'm done.

Rich - Fat Dad Fishing 15:06

Well, I wasn't really fighting the current. The current wasn't that bad. My problem was I was trying to put shoes on because I didn't want to I didn't want to sink into that stinky mud. Yeah, that was gross. That was it did not smell good. Did not smell good.

SPEAKER_05 15:20

So yeah, I mean I've seen a lot of stuff today. I mean, there there were some boats that were guided boats in the back, and they said they they slammed it on the incoming. And me personally, down in the high roller, I think did pretty well, which is a back bay boat.

Ed Gobbo 15:41

Yeah. That's up north, that's up here though. Yeah. So we were south today.

Rich - Fat Dad Fishing 15:45

What's funny is all the guys that we talked to haven't hitting it on the outgoing.

SPEAKER_04 15:50

Yeah.

Rich - Fat Dad Fishing 15:51

So, but but to to finish my point from from before, so I'm I'm typically gonna, you know, where I'd mentioned typically you'll get the warmer on the outgoing, and the further those those shallow flats and sounds are from the inlets, the longer it's gonna take for that to get actually out. We were actually in the sound, and it still took a couple hours of outgoing before we started to see the temperatures start rising, and then they shot up. Yeah, and that's actually when I ended up getting the the keeper and and Ray. Ray was hitting a lot of shorts at that point, but we were really just kind of drifting out so that we could so that we could head back. But the other thing is you can look at really deep areas because it's it's a more consistent temperature. So, and there was actually a comment in here from Ashen only keeper was 20 inch, came at 25 feet of water. You can definitely get them in the 25 feet of water. The question is how active are they gonna be? You know, and yeah, 30 degrees is not ideal.

Ed Gobbo 16:50

Those temps, you gotta knock them on the head to get them to bite.

Rich - Fat Dad Fishing 16:55

Yeah, I for me personally, when they hit 60, I'm gonna feel better about now. If it were last year with the later start, I would want it to be higher. But look, at the end of the day, even though we didn't come out with a ton of really great fish, there was a lot of activity, and people were hooking up, and and there's definitely a lot of fish back there. So I think it's a it's a good sign. So people should not worry about getting out there and wasting time. You won't, you'll go out there and you're gonna have just as much chance at catching keepers and catching numbers, which is different this year in New Jersey. You got to get a 17 to under 18, two of those, and then one over 18. So it's actually a little bit more difficult of well, it's not difficult, I guess. I had a couple that came in right under Ray had some that came in at exactly 17. He's like, I'm not risking it. So he threw them back. He's like, It's on the nose. He's like, and then he's tossing it back.

Ed Gobbo 17:52

Real quick, Brian. I do not, but it is a feature goal. What he was asking if I had a storefront.

Rich - Fat Dad Fishing 18:02

Well, you do you well, you have it on the the website. Well, no, like an actual, like a brick and mortar place you can go. Gotcha. So Don Don's in the chat, and he's saying he's fishing afternoon outgoing, preferably on a sunny day. We waited for the sun all freaking day, and it didn't come out until what one or two. Yeah, then it was nice, and then you got burned real quick. Yeah, and then I got cooked, as you can see. You had the he had the full face shield on too. And it uh yeah, I had that.

Ed Gobbo 18:30

I gotta get a new one. I think the whatever the UPF stuff is like washed out of it, but yeah, yeah.

Rich - Fat Dad Fishing 18:36

I I probably could have could have used one. All right, so John, so you're gonna you're gonna be the opposite of me. You're gonna be fishing the incoming and looking for the the warmer water from outside coming in, I guess the warmer actual water temperature, whereas I'm looking for the warmer sun heated temperature on the outgoing. Ed, where are you on that? Break the tie.

Ed Gobbo 19:02

Ooh, I'm gonna stay neutral because I've had good luck on both sides of it. Preferentially would be an outgoing. I I've always done better on the outgoing, but I've done well on both sides of the tide. But it also depends on location, too. That's that's a that's a big a big thing, is is where I'm fishing it.

Rich - Fat Dad Fishing 19:23

So yeah, well, I want to I want to win the argument, and Don and Brian both agree with with the option.

SPEAKER_05 19:32

That's fair enough. There was there was one other thing that I wanted to mention. The other reason why I do like fishing an incoming as well. You have all the bait coming washed into, and that's another thing. You're you're having bait come through, get swept in, and it's just gonna keep stacking up. So that's another reason why I'm gonna fish the incoming as opposed to an outgoing.

Ed Gobbo 19:53

On the outgoing, they're leaving, and they're already like half sun-baked and tired.

Rich - Fat Dad Fishing 19:58

So so you have two things there, and it's that's a really good point, John. Actually, you both you both make good points on that. The lower the water gets, the more predictable the spots are that these fish are going to be in. So you have that, but you have that on the incoming when the bait is just getting sent right back in. I I again I just prefer the outgoing because it there the number of spaces that they can go and actually ambush their prey decreases over time, right? So they could be in this this 500-foot area, and then you know, 15 minutes later, it's 400, 300, 200. So I like that. However, John, to your point, when they start getting pushed in and it's really low, like you start, like you're talking the start of incoming, yeah. That can be really good. That can be really good, but but I also look at it like that's kind of like it's the reverse of a funnel because as it comes in the narrow inlet, it starts spreading out as it comes in. When it's coming out from the the outgoing tide from the sounds and the back channels and the creeks, and the creeks are drying up, or they're drying during the outgoing, it's all funneled together into these more predictable areas for me. You know, that's and it's probably just the way that I think. I find it easier, which is probably it's probably good to get a couple of guys, one that feels comfortable going with the incoming, one that's good with the outgoing, because then you can throw some ideas off each other and fish more effectively the whole day. I naturally just think that my confidence is on the outgoing, and I think it's easier.

Ed Gobbo 21:38

But if you add to that, when I like I was telling you before, when I plan my most I'm not gonna give it away, most people know where I go. When I plan my most common uh trip from my most common launch, I will go towards mid to end of incoming tide and I'll fish, I'll let the tide. Take me in through the spot that I go to, and then I'll fish slack, and then as I you know, I'll fish the outgoing, and it'll pull me back to where I launch. Right. So I kind of get a little bit of both. I have noticed I catch more fish on my way back.

SPEAKER_05 22:19

Okay. In the comments, and I was waiting for someone to say it, and we've all talked about this. The biggest fish come on slack tide. So you know what? I'm gonna revoke my answer and go with diesel dick on this one. I like you can't change it.

Ed Gobbo 22:34

Nope, you're locked in. Final answer. You did not win a million.

Rich - Fat Dad Fishing 22:41

I I don't have a problem fishing slack tide. However, it's not I I don't think it's easier. It's not easier.

SPEAKER_05 22:51

It's not easier. You have to work for it. You really have to work for it.

Rich - Fat Dad Fishing 22:55

You got to think about so if a flounder is an ambush predator, and it needs two things a place to hide, which is the structure, and it needs and it needs to be in a spot where there's going to be a predictable path of food coming to it as bait fish. And when the water is slack, there's nothing brushing those smaller bait fish and the forage off of the sod banks and off of the bridges into a predictable area. So it's it's almost like mayhem down there. They're you know, but what they're doing is they're moving to set up for the change. So slacktide in that sense, if you know where they're going to be at the shift of the tide, or as they're moving towards that during the slack tide, yeah, I think you can. And and look, we have all caught huge fish at slack tide. We all have, and I don't know what it is. I think maybe if like like Diesel said, if you're if you got a trolling motor and you got some movement in there when everything else is just kind of like switching directions and everything, it might stand out. Maybe that's and I don't know, I'm guessing. But it's not gonna be it's not gonna be more predictable. Maybe they just get more active. Maybe, yeah.

Ed Gobbo 24:06

It's transitioning to their their new spots.

SPEAKER_05 24:10

Well, if you think about it too, you know, with it being an ambush predator, it's less strain on them, it's less movement. Bop a bigger one on the head, it goes, oh, look at that. And I don't know. Like you said, there there really isn't an answer, but I don't know if it's luck, but it just seems that you get the bigger fish on that that slack tide. I don't know what it is.

Rich - Fat Dad Fishing 24:31

I I I mean, I'll fish it. I'll absolutely fish it. I would not put it as my favorite time, but you know, Diesel's point is bigger fish in that time. I won't argue that it very well could be. I would say my biggest flounder was not at slack tide, it was actually right at the peak of the tide, which is not my favorite time because it's you know, when the tide's flowing real fast, flounder don't really like that. To your point, John. You know, they have to fight that current, which means they're burning calories just to get calories. They want to have the easiest ambush possible, they don't want to be chasing stuff all over the place. But I the biggest one that I caught in the backwaters was right at midtide in a very, very fast flow. It was it was actually pretty ridiculous where it was, but yeah. Well, slack

Bait Versus Gulp And Color Picks

Rich - Fat Dad Fishing 25:21

tie. I mean, that's that's an interesting it's an interesting thought there. I will say this about today. I saw it up there in the chat as a question. What was there any bait in the water? There was very little that I saw. Now we did see an osprey pick off a juvenile bunker, and that's probably about all the bait fish I saw. Ed, you saw some up in a very shallow area.

Ed Gobbo 25:44

It looked like it, but I could have been the wind blowing water across the flat. I don't know.

Rich - Fat Dad Fishing 25:50

It could have been, but there was not. It was not like well, at this time last year, there was a ton of bait in the water. I mean, it was all over the place, and it it was it was not there. I didn't see anything that would resemble bait at all, except for that bunker in the in the Ospreys talons on the way out in the morning, which is still pretty cool. That was cool. So let's talk about sorry. So we've got some spots. I mean, the look, go deep or go shallow. And I think you go sh this is just me in this early spring with the lower water temperatures. I'm gonna go shallow when there's sun, and I'm gonna go deep when it's cloudy. And that was our problem today. It was supposed to be sunny and it didn't get sunny, and we spent what 75% of our time in the clouds, and then and then as soon as we had to leave, the sun came out, you know, and we were up in the flats.

SPEAKER_05 26:44

Um out of curiosity, did anybody put any glow down? No, no, no, and the only reason I'm thinking that the water was so clear, it was very actually very clean. Well, the only reason I'm saying that is you know, the pink is bright, and that was the only thing you were getting a bite on. I'm just wondering if glow would have made a difference, you know.

Rich - Fat Dad Fishing 27:05

It might have, it might have, but the chartreuse got nothing. Okay, the white got nothing, chartreuse got nothing, the pink shine got nothing. It was only that really god-awful teenage girl pink, the neon pink.

Ed Gobbo 27:23

Actually, it's like the color Diesel's D on his name.

Rich - Fat Dad Fishing 27:26

Yeah, in the chat, yeah.

Ed Gobbo 27:28

It might even be worse than that. I I see I fished a hot pink jig head, I fished a chartreuse jig head, I fished every color combination you can think of. I had like three bites, and they were all in deep water. It was like 12 12 to 15 along that one bank.

Rich - Fat Dad Fishing 27:45

Other than that, I I caught all of mine either on the the big the big head white and pink or just on the pink on a bear hook, the the pink gulp on the bear hook. You know, but a lot of people are saying should have used bait. Yeah, should have. I'm not using bait. I'm not gonna use bait for the most part because I have nowhere to buy it up here, and nobody's open at the time that I want to get it, where we were going. You know, uh usually I'll swing by tight lines if it's if it's on the way, but I was unwilling to make that trip all the way out to tight lines for for the trip today. Plus, it was pouring rain as I was driving down.

Ed Gobbo 28:28

Yeah, I woke up, I had no idea it rained.

Rich - Fat Dad Fishing 28:31

Oh my god. I didn't sleep last night because I'm over I'm about two hours of good sleep, and that's about it, and all the driving. So I'm a bit whooped. L did okay. Apparently, L used glow today and caught shallow and light colors is what Billy is using. So anyway, I I would say maybe look, if we had a tournament next weekend. Actually, do we have a tournament next weekend, John, while you're burping?

SPEAKER_05 29:03

Uh I have no idea. There's gonna be a lot of burps, folks. So I'm sorry. I don't know.

Rich - Fat Dad Fishing 29:09

I don't think I'd like to. If I had it, I here's what I would tell people from my experience on the water today. If I had a tournament next weekend, I would I would definitely have bait and I would still bring the gulps because they were there weren't a lot of light hits, but you know what it was? It was a lot of strong hit once. It didn't do like the flounder does, where you drop back and it comes back, they weren't coming back. I only saw a couple come back with solid bites around us, and they're like like I said, there were like 10 boats around us, just drifting in the same areas and you know going up to different spots. So it was weird, it wasn't like they were just mouthing it, like they were striking it and dropping and and taking off. So if I had a tournament, I would have a squid strip on a mud minnow, and I would be fishing that, and I would have a gulp also on a second rod, and I would see which one was gonna work. I I think that's that's what it would take at this point. Maybe put some, you know, as I think Billy said, put some shutter oil on there, or or maybe it was Don that said it, put the shutter oil on there.

Ed Gobbo 30:12

I tried that stuff too, the pure procure.

Rich - Fat Dad Fishing 30:15

Yeah, I I used procure the shit one bite procure and I used shedd oil. And I didn't none actually, it none of those after I used them ended up getting anything. It was just the gulp on the on the regular jig head and the slower jigging. Ed, were you doing the fast John Skinner crazy jigging, or were you going slow?

Ed Gobbo 30:36

No, I was slow lift and drop. But yeah, like you said, they were hitting and running, and then me, I'm still in tog mode, so as soon as I feel a bite, I'm setting the hook, and I'm like, that was my my problem. I would have caught all those fish today had I had I like thought about it. And then I'm on driving home eating my Wendy's, and that's when it dawned on me. What'd you get? I got a bacon double bacon cheeseburger. That's another thing I learned.

SPEAKER_00 31:03

I stress to make me feel better.

SPEAKER_04 31:05

Yeah, that's another thing I learned today is I stress eat. I'm a female when it comes to that, I gotta eat chocolate. So that's these things. Don't eat these. Yeah, no, no, I'm good, man.

Rich - Fat Dad Fishing 31:17

So I'd be interested as as we're going through this. Anyone in the chat, if you made it out today, or even over the weekend before the the season opened, or if you're up in New York, it opened on Sunday. Yeah, what are what were you seeing as far as locations? Was it an all-natural bite, or was it is was there artificial? It I man, it just looked like such a good day when we hit the water. You know, the water was clean. Yeah, the water was clean, it was colder than it was. I was a little surprised at how cold it was when I when I put the kayak in and I first looked, I was like, that's that's about five degrees off where I expected it. And then the wind, and it was perfect. There was no wind when we launched, just like it was forecasted. And then it and then the wind came, and it was the wrong direction, too. It was supposed to be coming from the northwest, and it ended ended up coming from the southwest and south. For actually, it was more southwest for most of the day, and that it didn't hurt that much. I mean, it wasn't like it was blowing us all over the place, but it was wind against the tide for the entire morning, which is just not fun. It was actually to the point where I just told Ed, I'm like, screw it, reeling in, and I'm just going straight back to the sound. I just pedaled back another mile. Listen, I almost get back there.

Ed Gobbo 32:32

I almost pulled a creely today. Yeah, we've dubbed that. That's the creely. That's the new move. Pack your shit and leave. That's the creely.

SPEAKER_05 32:41

Yeah, man. I was going down, I was going back up the main channel that day. I was like, Yeah, there's gonna be fish here. And then the wind and the fog decided, nah, we're we're gonna come back off the ocean and just make you say you want to go home.

Rich - Fat Dad Fishing 32:54

Yeah, Ed was ready to go, and I said, If you go, I will hold it over you for the rest of your life. And he and I made I literally made him stay, I guilted him into staying.

Ed Gobbo 33:05

We dubbed it the Creely.

Rich - Fat Dad Fishing 33:07

Yeah. The Creely just canceled the flounder season like we have in the intro. That's it, I'm out. Just cancel the season.

SPEAKER_04 33:16

Cancel it on.

Rich - Fat Dad Fishing 33:18

It was it was frustrating, but it was encouraging though. You know, like I said, I I it's different, you know, it's different when you go out there and you can keep it, right? Like previous years, I would fish now and I'd be bottom fishing, and it's really for weak fish, but you get flounder when you're weak, when you're going for weak fish, they're in the same spots, generally speaking, and I'm still using the same high-low type of rig. I got the bucktail on the bottom, and I have a teaser with the gulp on the top, and that's what I'm catching the weak fish on. And every year I'm catching a lot of flounder at the same time pre-season, and it seems so easy. But then, of course, now that I want to keep some for dinner, it turns into a day like today where it's like, now I don't know, maybe it's the pressure of it. Maybe I just fold, I don't know, but it was it was a difficult day. I'm looking, I'm looking forward to better though.

Ed Gobbo 34:08

I don't think it's a pressure thing because I still got fluke in the freezer from last year, so it definitely was a pressure because I had nothing to prove and I got nothing.

Rich - Fat Dad Fishing 34:18

John, you keep doing that. I'm gonna have to do so much editing for the podcast, man.

SPEAKER_05 34:22

I I apologize, I cannot control it, and I have no answer why.

Tog Wrap Up And Big Fish Mindset

Rich - Fat Dad Fishing 34:27

Yeah, so we got a question, John, for you. What's your report for the end of talk season?

SPEAKER_05 34:33

All right, so you step when the captain tells you you're leaving at 8 o'clock, you're like, okay, well, I don't have to show up till 7.45. Great. Get a phone call at 7.30. Where are you at? Everyone's waiting on you. Well, you just like, I'm in the parking lot, just give me a minute. Walk up to the boat and you see Beatrice Soto on there, you know you're not catching your double digit. If anybody knows who she is, she's a slayer when it comes to top. Plain and simple. First fish she pulled up over the boat had to be, I don't know, five-pound sea bass. And the second fish that came over the boat, she pulled up, was an 11 and a half male tog. So I I didn't get my big fish. Oh, yeah, absolutely. I I mean I got a six-pound female, I got a couple keepers, but the east wing came in earlier than predicted on Saturday. It was supposed to be like three o'clock. It came in at 11. And I mean, those bites were far and few in between. And let me tell you, just be ready for seabass season. I think we probably could have put a boat limit together, seabass, within an hour if we actually put a high-low clam rig on. And I'm not talking no small sea bass, it was either it went in the cooler or it threw back out because that's just how big they were. You didn't even have to measure them.

Rich - Fat Dad Fishing 35:59

Saturday Saturday was a bad day. Again, the forecast was not only wrong, it was way wrong. We were gonna try some in inshore backwater tog, and it was it was ridiculous. Talked to one guy who had a trolling motor on his kayak, and he said he had been there for hours when we got to the one bridge that he was at, and he said, Well, my son caught two this morning, we haven't had a bite since. And you know, we had a few bites during the day, but the wind was just vicious, and uh, we and people were catching striped bass all over, and none of us really wanted the smaller striped bass that were where we were. So, actually, John, at the end of the day, Ray and Mush loaded up and they went, they headed up to the Raritan and they got into it, so they went for the bigger striped bass. I just went home. I was like, Yeah, it's enough.

SPEAKER_05 36:49

And I I'm gonna say this Matt and Tobiah beast mode, they put in the overtime. We we put in a 12-hour day, so it's not like we didn't try. I talked to Frank actually briefly on the ride back in, and his report was kind of the same thing as mine was, and he was on Fishmonger, so you know it wasn't that anybody was doing nothing wrong, it's just it was one of those days. Frank said they had a decent amount of keepers, and I think he said the biggest fish on the boat was seven pounds, and he caught that on the jig.

Rich - Fat Dad Fishing 37:25

So that's a nice fish. Everybody wants to double digit seven pounders and is a really nice fish.

SPEAKER_05 37:30

No, and even then, like I wasn't pissed about my my six-pound tog, you know. I tagged that, I released it, I was happy about it. But you know, what it's a lot of people don't understand, though, is the philosophy. If you're going for big fish, there's a difference. You're you're looking strictly for big fish, and and I feel that way about fluke too. It's if you're looking for big fish, you're not gonna catch as much fish because you're looking for that certain area that's gonna hold the big fish where there's less fish.

Rich - Fat Dad Fishing 38:02

Yeah, it's definitely true. Yeah, and I'm glad you brought it back to fluke.

New Jersey Limits And Tournament Choices

Rich - Fat Dad Fishing 38:06

In New Jersey, that's gonna be a challenge this year because you only get one. You know, you only get one big fluke, and you have a choice to make. If you get an 18, are you gonna keep it? You know, if you get an 18 and a quarter, if you get a 19, if you get a 20, those are all ones that you know, even a 21 or a 22, you're like, do I really want to keep this or should I throw it back? You know, you know, first fish of the day is a 22. I don't know. I I'm probably tossing that back thinking I'm gonna do better. But then, but then if if you want to get your limit, you're gonna you're gonna have to fish an entirely different place. I I literally this year I'm gonna have to fish different spots than I ever fished before because now it's not all about size, right? It's not because if you want to keep them, you can't. You can only keep one over 18 in New Jersey. Now, if you're in New York, the hat off to you, man. You just keep go, keep going out hunting those giants. It's a whole different thing. Delaware, Connecticut, it's all different. If you're in New Jersey, you got to split day. You got to go for the you gotta go look for the the little teenager flounder, and then you gotta look for the the big ones. And it's difficult because they are not the same spots, they're absolutely different spots.

Ed Gobbo 39:23

No, but see, I like that though, because it it makes it a challenge, it's something different than the same crap we've been doing for the last however long. But then, and then also, too, for you guys that are tagging, it gives you something else to do. So, even a big fish, you already got you know, you're over and you catch a big one, tag it, send it back.

SPEAKER_05 39:42

There you go. Yeah, I I mean, but here's the thing, too. Tournaments, that's a different story, and that's where I was just getting at. We're we're gonna have a little bit of issues with that, you know, as far as kayak guys. Now, boats, some boats have live wells, that's gonna help you out. But for us guys in the kayak, like you said, Rich, we're gonna have that decision to make. First fish is 22 inches, and you don't know how that day is gonna pan out because this weather has been horrible this year. Who's to say that forecast is wrong halfway through the day, and the wind completely stirs things up, and that 22-inch fish would have got you on the board.

Rich - Fat Dad Fishing 40:20

Yeah, yeah. It's gonna look the boat guys, they'll just cheat. They'll just they'll just give it, you know. If I pull if uh if Ed pulls in a 22, 22, and a 24, and John, you have an 18, an 18, and a 26. You can be sure that you're giving that 26 to Ed, and he's dropping that in on one of his 22. That's the way that I always see boats doing it. Now, I know a lot of guys don't do it that way, but I also know a lot do because they've told me they do, you know. It's like it's a joint cooler, and they're just gonna put the best one together, and the usually the person with the biggest fish gets the next two biggest fish. You can't do that on a kayak if you're gonna fish ethically and not go throwing back dead fish. So it's a good point, John. But it really just comes out to uh, yeah, it comes down to are are you gonna roll the dice or not? You know, because if your first fish at eight o'clock in the morning and you know it's it's it's sunrise, so let's say you're out there at seven, sun's up at 6 30, and you catch your you catch a 23, you're done for the day. Because all you need then is two that are just under 18 to fill out your weight. And those are those those are gonna be easy, by the way.

Ed Gobbo 41:35

A lot of those smaller fish have some weight on them, though.

SPEAKER_05 41:38

Well, and that's the thing. I mean, you might have a saving grace of 1799 that could be a two and a half pound fish, which just might save you that that just little bit, you know. That guy that caught that 26-inch fish, and you caught a 24 and a half. Yeah, yours might be underweight, but his isn't that much heavier, you know. Every fish is different.

Rich - Fat Dad Fishing 42:01

So last year for the Grassy Sound tournament, I had one fish that I could weigh in, and I brought it in, and Joe and I are like, This is at least we weigh something in. And and it was heavier than one that was that was two inches longer, but it was also lighter than one that was that was shorter than it. So actually, one of the the two people that were ahead, one of them actually had a shorter fish than I did, and I had a shorter fish than somebody that I was ahead of, too. So I mean you you're right. You you get the weight in there.

Ed Gobbo 42:35

Years ago, I caught a striper when we were allowed to keep the bigger ones. I caught a it was a 47-inch bass. Guess how much it weighed? It was 20 24 pounds. I mean, that that fish should have weighed 35 easy.

Rich - Fat Dad Fishing 42:48

Yeah, that's skinny. It was skinny.

SPEAKER_05 42:50

That sounds sounds like a male striper to me.

Ed Gobbo 42:53

I'll send you pictures. Yeah, I mean, it was years ago, but you know, you never know. You can have the length, but if the weight's not there.

Rich - Fat Dad Fishing 43:01

Well, you could do uh what was that one boat that that got banned for throwing all the lead weights?

Ed Gobbo 43:07

Yeah, they were stuffing lead into the fish. Yeah, yeah.

Rich - Fat Dad Fishing 43:10

What was it? Is it a fountain? The boat four three or four outboards. Yeah, I for I forget what it was. Yeah, they were throwing lead into them. You could have done that.

SPEAKER_05 43:19

Your skinny fish and artificially it was it was me, you, and Don last year. We fished that one tournament. You told me the kid weighed in the fluke and it was full of ice cubes when she went to go weigh it and lifted it, all the ice cubes came out.

Ed Gobbo 43:35

Yeah, yeah. There's a there's a good question

Where Bigger Fluke Actually Hold

Ed Gobbo 43:38

here. Will wanted to know where the bigger fluke hang out opposed to the smaller ones. Just general, he's not asking for spots, which we wouldn't give you anyway. Uh general well privately, general structured depth. That's you, not me. It's structured depth, etc.

Rich - Fat Dad Fishing 43:55

So, well, there's a couple of questions there, really. So you got You got to look at it here. Here's the generally speaking, instead of just talking about today 55 to 60 degree water, right? So, generally speaking, because of the type of of predator fish that a flounder is, first of all, they're very aggressive. A lot of people don't think they are. They are, they're extremely aggressive feeders. The big ones will run off the small ones. So you got to think of where is the best structure and where are the currents going to funnel fish and bait into a predictable area within that structure. The structure's there for them to hide, and the the current is what's going to funnel the food to them. They don't want to burn calories chasing things. That's not what they do. They're ambush predators, they're not like pelagics like tuna and mackerel that are just going to go flying all over the place chasing stuff down. They're waiting for something to come to it. So if you can find that spot where you're going to get the mixture of those two, you're going to have the current coming in, you're going to have really good structure. Usually it's a depth change, it's rocks, it's something like that. Usually the biggest one is going to be set up in the best spot in there, and the other ones are going to be around it, which is why you see in the summers all the boats drifting the middle of the channel, the easy drift, and they're all like, Well, the fish are here, we're catching, but they're all shorts. Yeah, they're all shorts because that's where the shorts are pushed. They're pushed out of the good spots, which are the ledges around it, it's the holes in that area, it's the creek mouths, it's the docks, it's the points, and all the little fish get pushed out into the long channels, and all these guys on the boats are drifting day in and day out, up and down the same exact territory. Whereas if you just move over to the edge and you look for the drop-offs, you look for the structure, that's where the big fish are. That's also where you're going to get snagged. You know, the John, you like to say, if you're if you're not stuck, you're not togging, or what is it?

SPEAKER_05 45:55

If you ain't snagging, you ain't togging. And you know what? That comes to fluking. Yeah, you know, I totally agree with that. You know, you find yourself a nice hole that's got some rocks or something that's got growth in there. That fish is just waiting for something to come around the corner and just go in there head first. It's gonna come out and just take it.

Rich - Fat Dad Fishing 46:16

Yeah, so so generally speaking, that's what I'm looking for. I'm looking for that good structure and the good flow that's gonna bring that that stuff that you know, it could be crabs, it could be sand, sand fleas, it could be mud minnows, it could be bunker, spot, anything into that predictable area. But take it now to this time of year. And we just got done saying I would look first up on the flats on a sunny day. Well, the flats by term are flat, but they're not really. So, what you're looking for are potholes up in the flats. So you're looking for the indentation. So if you're in a kayak, this is where you stand up. You stand up in the kayak, you look for the differences in the in the color of the water, and you look for the depressions. A pothole could only be two or three inches deeper than the area around it, it could have a little bit of growth in it. It's still early for a lot of growth to be in the water, but you know, on a grass flat, you just look for the indentations. They'll sit down in that indentation and things sweep over it and it can come up behind an ambush. So that's where I would look for the bigger ones, you know, in at this time of a year. Look for the potholes if you're up on a flat. Or again, if the flat is generally two feet deep to four feet deep, look for the ledge from two to four, look for the drop from four to six, look for any hole that's in there, look for any creek mouth where two bodies of water meet, two currents meet, really, is what I'm saying, instead of two bodies of water, where one current meets another current, all of that kind of thing. Look for the seams of the currents, that's where the big fish are, and the little ones you know that's the thing about flounder, they are literally all over, but you literally don't want to catch 99% of them because that's where you you end up saying, Well, I had a great day, I caught 40 fish, only one keeper. That's because you were not quite in the right spot, most likely. You were you were in a spot that had a lot of flounder, but you weren't in the spot that had the big flounder, and it was probably really close to where you were. So that's a really long answer. So I apologize.

Ed Gobbo 48:16

But that's a great, but that's a great prelude to your course because all of that and more could be yours if you purchase Rich's course. Well, that's not why it's for the small fee of $49.99.

SPEAKER_05 48:29

But it is in a course.

Rich - Fat Dad Fishing 48:32

It is in the course, but yeah. I I should stop talking because uh isn't there. But but it that's you know, I even say in the one last it's the it's one of the first ones. I I I think you this is this might even be a quote. It's been quite a while since I actually said it, but I think I said you absolutely need to watch this. This is foundational information, and it's basically there's more to it, but it's basically what I just went through. You have to understand this. You if you have to have the water moving, that's gonna call it's gonna create that fish highway or that food highway, which is gonna channel the food towards you, and you have to have the structure. If you don't have the structure, you're not gonna have an ambush predator. You know, I one of the ways that I've described it before when we've had these conversations is if you're playing a game and it's let's say you're playing paintball, right? And you're in a stadium, and John, it's you against me and Ed, right? So it's all it's it's three of us playing, and it's every man for himself. Who's gonna hide in the middle of the football field in the middle of the stadium and think that they're gonna win?

SPEAKER_04 49:40

That would be me.

Rich - Fat Dad Fishing 49:41

Right. So so nobody, whoever is whoever is the weakest of the three and gets pushed into the middle of the field is gonna be the dummy sitting in the middle of the field. What person is gonna try to set an ambush in the middle of a stadium? And and think about it this way that's the middle of the channel. There is nothing for that flounder to hide behind. There is nothing to really channel that food into that one little concentrated spot to make it easy on that flounder. So if you're playing paintball in a stadium, nobody's on the field. You're up in the the press box, you're behind some seats up in the upper levels, you know, you're on you're on the the inclines on the sides, you know, you're in the dugout if it's a baseball stadium and you're hiding in there. I'm in the pretzel stand. You're in the pretzel stand. Well, it's still it's still good cover.

Ed Gobbo 50:28

I'll be the dummy in the little divot in the field with camo. You wouldn't see me.

Rich - Fat Dad Fishing 50:33

Well, well, then then you're okay. Then you're in a divot, and then you're down in a pothole in the middle of a flat. So that's it still works, but you're not out in the middle, and that's where a lot of people fish, and that that's what it comes down to. It just doesn't make sense. If you want to, if you want to if you want to be successful and you want to ambush things, you're not gonna hide out in the open. You just don't do it. So all right.

Kayak Tournaments Should Use Length

Ed Gobbo 50:56

We do have a couple good ones I I uh wanted to put up here. Drew, with uh you know, common sense. I would absolutely 2,000 support that, even if I had to go by uh the legitimate.

Rich - Fat Dad Fishing 51:08

Well, read it as well for people that that aren't.

Ed Gobbo 51:11

Oh, yes, we do a podcast as well. Kayak Fluke Tournament should take a page from the Bass Federation kayak tournament and go by total length. Yes, one hundred and ten percent. I agree. Agreed.

SPEAKER_05 51:22

So yeah, um Drew, I appreciate you mentioned that. We actually canceled the pink fishing fluke tournament because of the regulations. Hard trying to come up with an idea of how I wanted to go about it for kayak fishermen. So next year we'll we'll obviously be doing something because I I might take this page out of your book. So I definitely appreciate that comment.

Ed Gobbo 51:45

Yeah, you could do you can have a regulation board. I think catch, and there's a couple companies that make them. Yep, regulation board, and then for the tournament you get a unique like an ID number, tag, yeah, a unique whatever, and it has to be in the photo with the fish. Yeah, and then that's that.

Rich - Fat Dad Fishing 52:05

And yeah, the any catch and release tournament, it's not even a new thing, you know. They've been doing it for years, but you don't typically see it for saltwater.

SPEAKER_05 52:14

No, you don't, and that's why it never crossed my mind because you don't feel every saltwater. Yeah, we do.

Rich - Fat Dad Fishing 52:21

The only reason I don't like it is because then I have to go out and buy a $50 catchboard, which doesn't break down, it doesn't fold. Of course, I broke my my other one, so I gotta get a new one anyway.

Ed Gobbo 52:31

I'll buy you one, Rich. I'll buy you one.

Rich - Fat Dad Fishing 52:32

They're like 50 bucks, man.

Ed Gobbo 52:34

It's all good. And then Don had another

Big Baits Strategy And Kayak Constraints

Ed Gobbo 52:39

good one. I wanted to touch on. If you want big fluke, use a big live bait. Weeds out the shorts. It definitely does. One of the one of the coolest things to do is late in the season with spot, and you you throw a spot overboard, and you light a cigarette, you smoke the cigarette, close the bale, and usually there's a fluke on board.

SPEAKER_05 52:58

Yeah, Don is I fished with him a couple times, and he's yelled at me constantly, you gotta use the spot to get the big fish. Yeah, I know, Don. I just I I don't like fishing bait.

Ed Gobbo 53:09

I don't I don't either, but every once in a while, I gotta figure out a way to keep them alive because me and my kids go down to the beach all the time, and we caught like 20 of them perfect bait size last summer, but there I have no way to keep them, so I gotta figure it out.

Rich - Fat Dad Fishing 53:25

You can't keep you can't keep spot alive unless you have a circular trap for them. I was thinking like a fish tank of salt water or something, I don't know. No, it's just like bunker. You they need to be in like a circular pen so they can keep swimming without running into the edges. They're not smart. It's mainly the bunker that do that. They you know, they just swim in a circle, and if you put them in a square pen, they'll just keep hitting the sides until they die. So you gotta put them in a big circular pen. You you'll see them in the fall typically where people start getting them. I I I will say this I don't fish with live bait mainly because I'm on a kayak. When I had my boat, I fish with it all the time. And and he's absolutely correct. I mean, big fish are are going to only be the ones that eat the the the bigger baits, you know. So if you put a spot down there or a an adult bunker, you know, just like with with striped bass, a large eel, you're likely going to get a larger striper on that. Now, bluefish come in it that that cancels everything that you've ever heard. They're they'll eat anything, you know, they'll just destroy everything. Sharks will too.

Ed Gobbo 54:34

I'd have bluefish take the tail off a dart spin.

Rich - Fat Dad Fishing 54:38

Yeah, you've never seen them. Bluefish are assholes, but that's why they're so much fun to catch. But they will eat anything. I agree with the big baits, big fish, and I actually do that with gulp baits. I use not right now, the at this time of the season, I go small. So I'm going with the smallest artificials that I can get away with. But as the season goes on, I'm using the biggest ones that I can find. So, you know, we're talking with Northeast Jig. I'm getting the I I have those Moabs, the the biggest, what are they, eight inch or something? Those are the ones that I want to use, even for inshore, because they will absolutely eat something that size, and it's it's only gonna be the biggest ones that are gonna do it. But again, that changes this year. I can only do that for one fish, and then I'm on to filling out, you know. Personally, I'm gonna go for the big fish first, and then I was just gonna ask that.

Ed Gobbo 55:31

What's gonna be your strategy?

Rich - Fat Dad Fishing 55:32

Yeah, I I'm gonna go for the big fish first. I I enjoy the hunt for the big fish more than anything, so you know, I'm good with one big fish for the day, and I don't care if I catch a bunch of shorts or 17 to 18s unless I'm trying to get dinner. But I I I'm gonna go for the big fish first, the bigger baits, and then I'll probably scale it back. But I'm still gonna use bigger baits. Flounder as an example. I mean, they have really big mouths, and a small flounder will eat one of those big gulp baits. You know, in the backwaters, I'm using the same ones that they're using offshore, and I'm I'm catching them. Yep, you know, you can catch an 18-19 on those. What size are they? Five inch, six inch? Six inch, I think. I was throwing one of them today.

Ed Gobbo 56:15

I had nothing on that.

SPEAKER_05 56:17

I don't I don't primarily throw six inch, I don't I throw no more than five, even out in the ocean. Uh five-inch grub is where I like to sit.

Ed Gobbo 56:26

Ocean, ocean fish, man. If you're on them, you drop a you could put a dog turd on there and they'd eat it. I mean, they're the the ocean fish, they're they don't care, they're not picky at all. When I went out last year, we found a pile of them and it was game on, but I put everything, I put all the junk on there, and anything I can find, and they I caught we were catching fish. So I I think the back bay ones are a little more finicky.

Rich - Fat Dad Fishing 56:53

I don't know if I agree with that or disagree with that. I I've seen some finicky offshore fish too. But size-wise, I'm using the same size inshore and offshore, except I won't go quite as small offshore, and maybe that's just me. I just figure such wide open spaces, I need something that's they're gonna see and it's gonna throw off some vibration, so I'm gonna go more aggressive on that kind of stuff. I did want to hit one thing though. You know, we're talking the kickoff for flounder season and some of the differences between you know the summer, which is what everybody fishes summer for fluke. That's that's what the summer's

Gear Talk Reels Rods And Teasers

Rich - Fat Dad Fishing 57:30

for. I'm gonna say this the the tackle for me is the same. I'm using the same stuff. I used that runkle, that runkle reel today, John. Not a big fan of it. It wasn't quite as bad as I was making it out to be. So I I I owe them a video on that, but it's not a fan of that.

Ed Gobbo 57:49

It didn't feel awful. I mean, I've fished with worse. I wouldn't so go buy one, but no, is that well that's the thing.

Rich - Fat Dad Fishing 57:56

I mean, it's a $50 reel. I would spend $50 or $60 on it, but I would rather just double the cost and get an Acuraist because I think it's more than twice as good. So sorry, Runkel. You wanted me to glow and say all the best things and yes, go out, everybody buy it. No, if you want an introductory, just try out a baitcaster low profile. I would recommend it because it is worth a $50 or $60 investment. Seems like a good reel. It handled the fish that I got today, it handled the tog that I got before on the last trip. But it is not, I don't see that it's gonna last the year if I put it through its paces against fluke. So I'm putting the accuracy back on. I'm gonna go with that in a squall, but I'll do a video on that for anyone that's interested in getting into the low profiles and seeing if you like them. It does cast okay. The brakes aren't great on it, but if you're good at casting a baitcaster already, I mean, or even a conventional, you don't need brakes. I I like to use brakes because I am not great with a baitcaster.

Ed Gobbo 59:01

Now, are you talking are you talking the dial on the side or are you talking when you pop the cover off or the the knot, there's a a clicker on the side?

Rich - Fat Dad Fishing 59:09

No, I'm I'm just talking about the magnetic brakes on the on the casting. So if you if you if you just open it up and let it go, the the way that you know that the brakes are set correctly. Well, if you if you want to make sure you get no backlash, is the lure, once it hits the the ground, the line should stop. So it's just enough to let the lure go down and hit the ground, but it doesn't keep pulling line after it after the lure hits the hits the ground. Right.

Ed Gobbo 59:36

The way I set mine on the side where the handle is, there's a a a knob that you turn. That's set when you click the spool, that sets your free spool speed. Then on the other side of the reel is where the the magnetic brakes are, and those are that's magical stuff there.

Rich - Fat Dad Fishing 59:51

I don't think yeah, it all depends on what kind of reel you have because there's only one set on some reels, and then there's two on the others. It it it depends. So, anyway, I will do a video, a short video on the Runkel heroism baitcaster reel for anyone that's interested. I owe it to them. They did send me a free reel, and I think they were planning on it being uh, and they they said if we like the review, we'll give you another. Well, I'm not in this to get free reels, so I'm gonna give you guys Yanna's opinion. It's not that bad. I mean, it's not like I don't like it, but I'm also comparing it to $200. You know, I love the pen. I love the dial Dio Alexa that I used of yours, John. I I really love the Acuraist, the S3. I absolutely love that thing, and it it just it just doesn't compare. It feels like a freshwater bait caster. That flipping switch, man. That's that's the there's no flipping switch on this thing, and again, it's a $50-60 reel, but man, just remember we were talking about we're we're starting in three or four feet of water and we're dropping down today to 12 and trying to keep in contact with that lure and keep it right at or you know an inch off the bottom. So I'm constantly looking for the bottom. I'm constantly so what I was doing is I was letting it out, but I was never flipping the bale on it. So I was just kind of my thumb on the spool until it got down to the flat part, and then I locked it. And and I was sick of reaching over with my left hand to turn the handle. So, you know, I was able to hold it so I could flick the uh the star drag, which would turn the handle and it would flip it again, or I'd get my thumb my thumb under the back and just push it, you know, back up. But it's a pain in the neck, especially when you're spoiled and you use one with a flipping switch, like the the Acuraus or the pen or the Dio. I think the Lexa has it, right? What's that? The flipping switch. It does not.

SPEAKER_05 1:01:42

I thought the accurate is the only one. Yeah, I think accurate quantum's the only one, I think. That actually I think it's patent.

Rich - Fat Dad Fishing 1:01:49

No, there's a there's there's definitely others. I used another one. Maybe it's a different kind of accurate. I don't know. But the one that I use for fluke is the the accuracy. The squall I use for tog, so I'm not really flipping anything, I'm just dropping it down and you know holding the bottom.

SPEAKER_05 1:02:06

So I'm gonna let Brian know real quick. You're gonna love that reel. I have two of them. I have one for toggon, it's five four here ratio.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:18

What's the question?

SPEAKER_05 1:02:19

No, he said he has a Lexa 300 on the way. Let him know he he's gonna love it. And then I have a 6-1 for fluken, I think. And they both had the power handles on them. So it's goal pull and tuna. I mean, that these guys use them as tuna reels, but it's nice to have that line, especially if you're in the backwaters. I hooked a couple rays last year, shark as well, and I never thought I was gonna lose lines. Just gonna say you're gonna love the reel.

Rich - Fat Dad Fishing 1:02:48

Yeah, but again, it's fluke. You don't have to go with these big, you know. I'm not gonna knock you, I'm not gonna knock these really nice reels. Theyowax is good. I love the pen squall, I love the accuracy. All you need is an accurate 120, 130 reel, and you got plenty of drag, you got 18 pounds of drag. You can have an 18-pound flounder, and it's not gonna it, it's not gonna spool that thing. You got plenty as long as you have a pair with the right rod, you're you're in good shape. So I think that's an important point, right? This is not this is not one of those species where you have to go really gear intensive on the reel. You really should have a really good rod. And Ed and I were talking rods today, and we were passing them back and forth when we were catching shorts and just getting bites, you know. And there's there's definitely differences. I think he likes the rod that I have, but doesn't love it. I like his rod, but I don't love it. Well, you have you have a Nexus, right? And mine's a custom.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:47

Yeah.

Rich - Fat Dad Fishing 1:03:48

I I really like it because it's it's a thin rod. The handle is definitely too long for me. Yes, the butt's too long, but the sensitivity is is great. So, you know, as far as gear, I'm looking for something with a sensitive tips so that and and some decent backbone once you get it at the bend in there. And I'm looking for something that's a a moderate fast action when I'm when I'm vertical jigging. I just like that. You could go fast. I don't think you want extra fast. You want a little bit of bend in there, especially on a flout on a flounder or a fluke. You're okay with another moment before the the pressure really digs into the into the jaw of that thing. I mean, you shouldn't be waiting too long if you're fishing artificials. If you're fishing live baits, well then you better set it quick. I know it's counter to what people say, but that's how you gut hook them when you let them eat the whole thing. Uh, there were a couple of questions in here. What's the height of your teaser above your bucktail, Don? So for me personally, this is gonna sound terrible. It all depends on the length of the leader that I just tied on. No, I'm just kidding. I I actually go about 18 inches above, uh, 12 inches to 18 inches. It depends on how deep I'm fishing. Today we were fishing shallow, so it was only about 12 inches. I wanted it real close. And I actually caught about the same number of fish on the teaser that I did on the on the big head, the the bucktail. So I'm I'm going close in shallow waters. When it's deep water, I'll I'll do up to two feet. I like to have a two-foot difference there, especially if you are not scoping the line too much. That it gives you a pretty good vertical thing, and you will find that you will catch a lot on that teaser. I know some people just like the single hook, and hey, whatever works for you. But I catch a lot of big fish. My biggest fish was caught on a teaser. Ver and it was totally vertical jigging at the time. It's on video, you can go back and check it out. It's totally vertical, and I caught that thing on the teaser, and it was about two feet above the bucktail.

Ed Gobbo 1:05:54

Now, real quick on the teaser, do you notice that even when you catch a smaller fish, it feels way bigger than it is?

Rich - Fat Dad Fishing 1:06:00

When you catch them on the teaser, I think it's because you had the weight of the bucktail swinging weird on the side. You know what I mean? Have you noticed that? Because I have. I I think I feel the head shakes more. It's a good point. And and actually, one of the guys on the boat on one of the boats next to us today, it looked like he had a big fish, and he was sure he had a big fish, and he looked and he's like, forgot I put the net down. And it was on the teaser. So yeah. It looked like a big fish, though, that he had. I haven't noticed that, but I think it might be because you have the weight of the bucktail swinging. So it adds a little something to that head shake.

Ed Gobbo 1:06:37

But every time I've caught them on the teaser, they're they've been short, but they always feel like they're you know 20, 20 plus.

Rich - Fat Dad Fishing 1:06:45

Well, at least you get the good fight out of it. Uh let's see.

Team Shirts Bucktails And Tackle Notes

Ed Gobbo 1:06:50

Here's one from Diesel about our our shirts. He wants to know the one that you're wearing. Yes, the the team shirt.

Rich - Fat Dad Fishing 1:06:57

Yeah, the fat that fishing team shirt. So those actually right now, you you want he wants to know where to buy them. So those aren't for sale right now. Gotta be on the team, bro. So actually, well, yeah, I mean do just because I got I bought a limited, I got a limited number of them. We got them just for the guys that were fishing the tournaments together, but I actually have some extras, but I only have this is the thing that's funny. There was a there was an error in the order. So I have extras, but they're all large. So there aren't too many fat dads that fit in large shirts. Diesel, if you if you wear a large, I'll be happy to bring one down and meet you on the water sometime and just give it to you. They if people really want them, we could sell them. I I know that the the supplier who who made it, where we have talked about getting something together and putting more of her products as a manufacturer for the the apparel items. So, like like this shirt right here, I love this shirt, and I think she actually has one that's probably even better quality than this. John, you like the shirt. You're wearing it too.

SPEAKER_05 1:08:05

Yeah, why why didn't you call me and tell me what shirt you were wearing? Now we look like dicks wearing the same shirt.

Rich - Fat Dad Fishing 1:08:11

Well, I was on the water with my sweatshirt and it it and I had flounder on it, so I I got home and showered. I didn't want to wear it on the stream tonight and stink myself up after just getting a shower. So, yeah, so Diesel, it's not available right now, but yeah, James, I wish I had an XL to give you. I literally only have larges. That's it, and I'll give them to you if you guys want them, but I I don't have any other sizes right now.

Ed Gobbo 1:08:38

You should look into look into getting them made without without the team under it, because you know.

Rich - Fat Dad Fishing 1:08:43

No, everybody here is on the team, man. Anybody who shows up is on the team. It's all good. It's all good. All right, I'll look at if if people really want them, let me know. You know, if if you really want them, let me know. Send me an email, Rich at fatdadfishing.com. I can I can talk with her and we can get something set up so you can buy them. The question were we're using the new fat dad bucktails. I was using them and I was catching them. I was using the big head ones. I you I've used the fluke tail, and I did I did well on those last year. Uh I was using those as prototypes before they were even out, and I did really well on those, but I was using the big heads, which are the newer ones, and and that's what I was catching them on today. Again, it was about 50-50 split, 50% on the bear hook with the gulp, and about 50%, including the keeper, on the big head. It was a three-quarter ounce, and I think it was the uh the pink and white that I was using today. So if you want those, I don't make any money on it, by the way. So I'm just telling you because it's literally what I use and what Ed and I kind of work together to to design. I think they work awesome. Ed's the only one that makes them. So check out Captain Hanks if you if you really want one of those. I I definitely recommend them, and that's all I use. I mean, I just had an order delivered to me today on the water by Ed. I had a big order of of them that she can. Quite a large order. Yeah, she got me through a few weeks.

Ed Gobbo 1:10:09

Find the other the original order, the first one.

Rich - Fat Dad Fishing 1:10:12

Full disclosure, I order a lot of stuff from Ed because I keep losing it in my garage. I have a lot of these bucktails, and I don't know, I don't know where they are. I know I have them. I mean, I just bought some two weeks ago. Haven't even gone fluke fishing, and I didn't have any.

Ed Gobbo 1:10:26

Yeah, I think you got I give you six. That was the first, the original ones. You got the first six.

SPEAKER_05 1:10:32

So there's a question here from Brian, super mag that you may want to look into.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:38

Uh okay.

SPEAKER_05 1:10:40

Yeah, this this is actually a very

Dry Suit Decisions And Safety Reality

SPEAKER_05 1:10:42

good question.

Rich - Fat Dad Fishing 1:10:42

I'm happy to answer this one. All right, so basically the question is when do you stop using a dry or semi-dry suit? Is there a cutoff temperature situation? Okay. Hold on one sec. I have to call off. If I can mute myself here. All right, so I want to make sure that I that I do this question justice. So, Brian, there is a rule called the rule of 120, which is the combination of the water temperature and the air temperature. If it equals 120, you don't need a wetsuit or a dry suit. If it's below 120, you do. That's bullshit. It is absolute bullshit. Don't listen to that, it's false. You could use that as a rule if you want to use an excuse to go out on the water without a dry suit or a wetsuit. Today, as an example, I it was pretty warm, but the water was was in the mid-50s to upper 50s. So to me, where I was, I did not wear my dry suit. I had it, I brought it out, I looked at it, and I was like, should I wear this? And he just looked at me, he's like, Nah. I was like, You're probably right, because the air temperature was okay, but really it comes down to the water temperature. 55 degree water is cold, but it ain't that cold. I used to go surfing in that with a spring suit or just with the surf top. You know, you can last for quite a while in there, and we were fishing backwaters. So today, in the backwaters, in you know, just a few feet of water real close to shore. I did not wear my dry suit. Normally, I always wear it in in colder temperatures. If I were going offshore today, let's say I was going out in the Rariton Bay, I would have put it on.

Ed Gobbo 1:12:34

Yeah, where we were, you could just stand up. Well, yeah, there's quite a few spots we could just stand.

Rich - Fat Dad Fishing 1:12:41

Or go on to one of the 10 boats that were going by and just saying, hey guys, lend me a hand. Right. Those guys were so nice, they probably would have all come over to help.

Ed Gobbo 1:12:49

I'll tell you what, that uh not to interrupt, but that those those guys were the nicest boaters I've ever fished around ever.

Rich - Fat Dad Fishing 1:12:56

Yeah, and I don't want it, I don't want to say that where because I I don't because it's not a big area, and I don't want everyone like knowing where we were, even though it wasn't the best of days, but those guys know who we are because we were all talking, and many of them now know who we are, and we won't burn your spot, but yeah, they were they were awesome. So if I were going offshore though, and and it was 55 degree water, I would still be wearing that that dry suit. And the thing is this you're gonna be you have the potential of being in the water for much longer when you're offshore. But the the big thing is let's go back to that rule of 120. If it's 100 degrees out and the water is 20 degrees, technically you don't need to have, or it's 21 degrees, you technically, according to that rule, don't need to wear a wetsuit or a dry suit. Well, if you fall in 20 degree water, you probably have a couple minutes and then you're done. I mean, you're literally done. So don't don't use that rule. You just got to look at it from the practical standpoint. Now it's a general, you know, if you want to do it generally, okay, but really I only look at the water temperature uh for most of the year. Now, if it's 20 degrees out and it's 70 degree water, guess what? I'm fine because if I fall in the 70-degree water, I'm just gonna stay as low in the water as possible to stay 70 degrees. Keep your head up. Yeah, it's like it's like it's like a hot tub in winter, it could be snowing, but if you're in a hot tub, who cares? So for me, for me personally, it's all about the water temperature. You just got your coca-tat semi-dry. And by the way, the difference between a semi-dry and a dry is not all that different, it's essentially the same thing. Yeah, it's a it's neoprene versus vinyl or whatever gaskets. So you can get little trickles of water in there, or latex versus versus neoprene. You can get trickles of water in there, whether you have a dry suit or a semi-dry suit, unless it's a dive suit, you're probably still gonna get water in there somewhere, a little bit at least. But I I would wear it offshore right now, 55 degrees to me in the backwaters when I'm just a couple feet from shore. I'm not overly concerned about it, but I am wearing the life jacket the entire time.

SPEAKER_05 1:15:08

Hey Brian, it if you are deciding to go out within the next couple days, just shoot me a message if I can get my truck done. If I get the parts in time, I I'm aiming for Friday. Weather isn't looking too great, but if I can get my truck done by Thursday, I might be heading down more south. So just shoot me a message on Facebook or Instagram.

Rich - Fat Dad Fishing 1:15:31

Oh, yeah, I've seen the comment. Okay. All right. Yeah, so hopefully that answers answers that question. Are there any other things that we should cover? Any other questions before we we wrap this one up?

Ed Gobbo 1:15:44

There was one I saw, but it was we already addressed it for Will. He was asking about outgoing tide for fluke. We addressed it that addressed that earlier. So if you re-listen, you'll catch up on that.

Rich - Fat Dad Fishing 1:15:56

Oh, okay. Yeah. Uh I don't want to go into long explanation for everybody. Just so you know, also, this will be out on the podcast. It'll be cleaned up, it's it'll be a much more digestible format on Thursday morning. So less extra. If you haven't checked it out, the podcast actually sounds pretty good. It is edited and everything like that, but it's on all the the major podcast platforms. And I'm just telling you telling everybody that because I know I personally there were several live streams that I watch, but I don't watch, I just kind of turn it on and listen. And the problem I have is on YouTube, if I close my phone, it has to keep the video playing. So as soon as that happens, it stops. So you can't just get the audio. So you can get the audio only if you want to wait till Thursday. If you can only listen to part of it or you miss part of it, it might just be easier to do the podcast. But it's on Apple, Spotify, Stitcher, Google, all of those. So you can check it out over there.

Ed Gobbo 1:16:58

Thank you, Brian. I I just saw it come through.

Rich - Fat Dad Fishing 1:17:02

You got an order.

Ed Gobbo 1:17:03

Yes, you put an order in.

Rich - Fat Dad Fishing 1:17:05

Very good, very good. All right, so we have to figure out what we are doing for next week's next week's show. So we don't have that yet. We we are going to have Philly Girl fishing coming on on the 16th. So she's gonna come out. We're gonna be talking about charter and party boat fishing. For those that haven't seen her YouTube channel, she's all over the the charter boats and and the party boats. And I think everybody knows her on these boats, and she does a really good job on them. So we figured it would be a good time for those that haven't gone out on a lot of party boats, myself included. I'm I'm a relatively inexperienced party boat guy. She's gonna come on and kind of go on the the ins and outs on the 16th, but we still have to figure out what we're doing, doing next week. So we'll figure that out this week and we'll put that up. I think that covers us, man. I mean, it's just man, it's a day of learning. It was a day of learning for everybody. Yeah, and and you know what? The one thing I think one thing that you did say today, Ed, was a really good point. If if we had just taken the boat instead of the kayaks, it would have been a different day. Yeah, because we would we would have been churning and burning to different locations. And sometimes when you're in the kayak, that's just not an option. You know, you gotta we gotta go two miles into the current just to get out, and then you got another two miles to the next spot. That's a problem. Whereas today, the guys in the boats, you know, they were they were able to fly up there at 30 miles an hour, and you know, they're they're changing spots real quick. Not that they all did great.

Ed Gobbo 1:18:39

The weather, the but the weather kind of misled us too. Had we known that it was gonna be like this, yes, I would have hooked the boat up and we'd have drug it down. But you know, the the weather definitely did not play in our favor for kayaks.

Rich - Fat Dad Fishing 1:18:52

Yeah. I alright, I can't go without addressing this one last comment here.

Waders On A Kayak Risk Breakdown

Rich - Fat Dad Fishing 1:19:01

Let me get this. Ed was doing the comments, so I wasn't really ready for it. Which one you got? Here it is on screen. KV. I know I should buy a dry suit, but unfortunately I spent my money elsewhere on the kayak. Is it safe to wear light waders with a tight belt on a kayak? Okay. Here's the truth people will tell you if you fall in from a kayak with waders on, it'll sink you. It's 100% false. It will not sink you. You will become neutrally buoyant, it does nothing. However, if you don't have a tight belt on there and you get any current into the top of those waders, it will feel like it's pulling, it'll pull your waders, which is gonna pull you. So the biggest problem with waders on a kayak is if you go in, tight belt or not, you're gonna start getting water in there. And the last thing that most of us want is extra weight when trying to self-rescue into a kayak. So think about how much water can fit in your waders and how much that weighs, 10-15 gallons of water in there. Now try to climb back in with, you know, for me, my 250 plus weight plus water's seven or nine pounds a gallon. So yeah, I mean, it's just it's put it that way. It's not so you have to take them off in order to get back in. And I know this from personal experience. We used to go out a long time ago, and we would go out and we would wear waders, we'd go out to the sidebanks of the kayaks, and we would just jump in with the waders on and just take them off in the water, and then we'd get back in because you couldn't. And this is when I was in my 20s, in outstanding physical shape, could swim a mile, no problem, without without breaking the sweat, always in the water. But you know, me, like nearly 50 years old, you know, 250 plus pounds. No, don't do it because you're not going to get back in their kayak. Uh now, if you're Mike Warner, he might be able to get back in if he's wearing waders.

Ed Gobbo 1:21:05

But I wouldn't even I wouldn't even put that I wouldn't even put that out there. I wouldn't even recommend it. I I would rather take my chances. I don't own a dry suit. I would rather take my chances in the water trying to swim to a bank than try to get back into a kayak wearing waders.

Rich - Fat Dad Fishing 1:21:17

Well, you should try in the summer, go in the water in a pool with waders on and see how easy it is to get them off. It's not, especially.

Ed Gobbo 1:21:25

I have the neoprene ones and they're like skin tight.

Rich - Fat Dad Fishing 1:21:28

Well, so neoprene will also help you float, too, by the way. You got to test it out with your waders. I wouldn't do it because you can't get back in if you get water in it, but some neoprene waders will actually help you to float. Again, they're neutrally buoyant at the worst. But if you get any current in there, it could be a problem. So I wouldn't do it, wouldn't recommend it, never will. But I mean, but I will always I will always tell people stop saying it'll sink you. It absolutely does not sink you. It's science, it's neutrally buoyant. Water is not heavier than water. Water is the same weight as water, and that's all there's no difference between the water in the waiters and the water outside the waders. But if you get any current in there, it'll start to pull. It's like a it's like a balloon, it's like a parachute.

Ed Gobbo 1:22:14

I mean, so I mean I don't I don't wear a dry suit, but then again, I don't fish areas where I feel I would even need a dry suit or temperatures that I feel like I would need a dry suit. I mean, we're you're in a kayak. I mean, you gotta do a little bit of risk assessment there. Is a fish worth you know what I mean? Yeah, uh is a fish worth is it worth going out in a kayak in those temperatures that you need a dry suit or hopping on somebody's boat? I mean, I'm sure everybody in the chat, uh everybody I know, I know everybody that's got boats.

Rich - Fat Dad Fishing 1:22:49

So if I really want to fish that bad, and there's head boats, so you can jump on one of them. With that said, I wear a dry suit because I I do fish those temperatures, right?

Ed Gobbo 1:23:00

That's and that's what you do, that's your thing. But for me, you know, my risk first reward, not so much.

Rich - Fat Dad Fishing 1:23:07

Yeah, so again, I I wouldn't recommend using the the light weighters, but it's your choice. I I just recommend if you really want to jump in a pool with them, try to take them off, try to get out with them filled with water, just so you know what you're getting into. I I will tell you this. I actually took a header, where was it? Was it Belmar? It was one of those beaches where it's just like straight down, and then you had the break, right? The shore break right there. And it was in the middle of winter, and I'm wearing my waders, and the the sand came out from under my feet when I'm surf fishing, and I end up going face first out into the water. So as I stand up, the water comes down. Now I have a I have the the belt around my chest, but water still gets in there, and it was so heavy, it was it was damn near impossible to just to just crawl out of the water, and I was only about a foot or two in, and it just kept kept getting pounded as the waves came over. They kept filling the waders, and it was so heavy, it was ridiculous. The guy next to me is like, you need help? I was like, Yep. So he comes running over, and I I was lucky. I mean, I get I still got up without him, but he just helped me like turn around. I sat down and I had to take the waders off, and then they were they were absolutely filled with water. So don't mess around with the currents and the and the waders, just be really, really, really careful. It's better to not go out if if you're not sure about it. But go ahead and test it in a pool and make sure that you do it smart though. Don't just jump in the deep end of a pool with waders on, jump in the shallow end with people there so that you're not gonna drown. But you'll see it is it is not. I don't care if you have a belt on your chest. It if the water gets in there and it will, it gets heavy and it gets difficult to move.

Open Invite Meetups And Wrap Up

Ed Gobbo 1:24:49

So look, we gotta we gotta open invite on James's boat anytime.

SPEAKER_05 1:24:53

James, thank you. And you know what? That that that goes back the other way. If you ever want to come out kayak fishing with us, give it a shot, you know. More than welcome to. We have the other kayak.

Ed Gobbo 1:25:03

So as I say, yeah, we're trying to get on your kayak, John. That's fine, whatever. That's kind of weird. Yeah, he's not gonna be able to do that.

Rich - Fat Dad Fishing 1:25:12

You can sit on the front of my kayak. Um so we we are trying to get we had mentioned this at the beginning of the year. Ed and I had talked about this. We we want to get more people together, more on the water time with everybody. And you know, we we put it out before this, you know. Now opening day is on a Monday. 99% of people are working, so uh not a lot of people go, but Ray went. And you know, we're gonna be pretty public about not all, but some of the fishing trips that we're taking, and just kind of say, hey, open invite. We're not telling you that we're guiding you anywhere, we're not guaranteeing you any fish if you just want to hit the water with us. I take no blame if you catch nothing, I take no credit if you catch a world record. It's uh we'll just tell you every once in a while when we're going, and if you want to go, we'll just tell you where we're gonna meet and what time and show up if you want to. But I I I think it's a lot of fun when we do that.

Ed Gobbo 1:26:04

So yeah, I'd like to I'd like to do that. I'd like to get everybody together and do a giant flotilla of fat dads. Um I guess we could maybe get everybody, whoever's not in the the fat dad Facebook on the Facebook page. Maybe that's where it's probably the best way to get that kind of info out quick. Yeah, maybe Captain Hanks, either or or both.

Rich - Fat Dad Fishing 1:26:26

Both. And throwing Creely custom rods, too. If you want to see some cool rods getting made. Yeah, those new marble rods are sweet.

SPEAKER_05 1:26:34

Yeah, that's uh that's actually one of the projects right now. It is uh marbling project.

Rich - Fat Dad Fishing 1:26:38

So John John's wrapping up his headset, he's got to get to work.

SPEAKER_05 1:26:42

Uh no, I'm just taking it off because I'm sweating a little bit.

Rich - Fat Dad Fishing 1:26:45

Oh, okay. So participation trophy, not everybody has Facebook. That is correct. If you want to connect on Facebook, you can you can look for fat dadfishing on Instagram, fat.dad.phishing. Email. That's why I always give out my email because everybody does have email, rich at fatdadfishing.com. And I'll be honest, I'm not gonna say it right now, but I actually get as many texts from people as I do emails, and it's a lot, so you know, happy to text, give me a call, whatever. Yeah, I mean that's just kind of how it turns out. Now, sometimes I forget who I'm talking to.

Ed Gobbo 1:27:24

Well, here, let's let's do this. Let's plan a date. We'll plan a date because I guess not everybody's on on the social media. Plan a date, we'll announce it on one of the live streams, and then you know, if we do cancel S minute, sorry.

Rich - Fat Dad Fishing 1:27:42

Yeah, but we're we're gonna have to decide. Well, I mean, we're not gonna rent a boat, right?

SPEAKER_02 1:27:46

No, no, kayak day.

Rich - Fat Dad Fishing 1:27:48

Kayak Day. Not everyone has a kayak, but well, it looks like a bunch of people in here do.

SPEAKER_05 1:27:53

Yeah, but you know what, even the guys with skiffs and whatnot, because a lot of guys on this this page here too have skiffs, they

Rich - Fat Dad Fishing 1:28:00

Well like Diesel. Yeah, I see Diesel out on the water.

SPEAKER_05 1:28:03

If I'm not mistaken, James, you have a skiff as well. Um Yeah, and I think there's a couple other folks that have skiffs, you know.

Ed Gobbo 1:28:09

Just it'd be a back back bay thing. We can figure out a meat spot and whatever.

Rich - Fat Dad Fishing 1:28:16

We'll do our own little tournament. We'll give away a free large shirt.

Ed Gobbo 1:28:21

And uh a used bucktail. Yeah, used bucktail. We'll make a trophy or something.

SPEAKER_05 1:28:28

One free one free uh uh junior frosty from Wendy's that's their place.

Rich - Fat Dad Fishing 1:28:33

You got a coupon for that though, right? If if we ever if we ever did something like that, we'd have to make a trophy with somebody with just like a big belly. It would be like a big fat dad Buddha belly trophy.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:45

Oh, it would have to be totally totally outrageous. It would have to be.

Rich - Fat Dad Fishing 1:28:50

Yeah. All right. Well, listen, let's wrap this up so that people can get back to their real lives. Everybody, thanks for stopping by. We'll announce the next uh the next topic sometime towards the end of this week. Not sure if we're gonna have a guest on or not. We have several guests, we just don't have the dates all ironed out, and life has been kind of crazy for the three of us. So um it's been kind of tough to get things pulled together. But we will get our act together, we'll get our shit together before next week. We'll uh we'll have it posted. John won't. I will. I'll get it together before before next week. So with that, guys, everyone get out there and get on the water. Fluke season is open pretty much all, I think it's the whole coast now at this point. Uh at least for our viewers, New York, New Jersey, and Delaware, uh, which is where most of the view the uh the viewers are from and the subscribers to this channel. So get out there, get on the water, get some tight lines, and we will check you next time. Thanks.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:42

All right, guys, take care. See you later.