EP 79: 7+ Tips to Catch Weakfish with George Bucci

Weakfish are one of those fish that can make you feel like a genius one night and completely humbled the next, and that’s exactly why we love chasing them. Rich Natoli sits down with returning guest George Bucci to get practical about what actually changes your results when you’re targeting weakfish in summer on light tackle, especially in New Jersey back bays, inlets, bridges, and jetties where current and structure decide everything. 

We dig into why weakfish are still listed as overfished, why the best guesses point to natural predation and changing ecology, and what that means for how we handle fish in warm water. Then we get tactical: slow retrieves, staying off the bottom, reading current seams, fishing the last of the incoming and first of the outgoing, and working shadow lines near dock lights where bigger fish often sit just outside the bright water. If you’ve ever felt that “tick” and swung too hard, we also talk paper mouths, drag settings, and the gentle hookset that lands more fish. 

George shares his confidence setup, the jig head weights he carries all the way down into “freshwater gear,” why he ties direct instead of using a clip, and how counting the fall helps you dial in depth without snagging. We also touch bait options like grass shrimp and peanut bunker under a float, plus what to expect when the fall mullet and peanut bunker runs turn everything into a different game. 

If you’re ready to turn random weakfish into repeatable weakfish, hit play, subscribe for more, and share this with the friend who always reels too fast. After you listen, leave a review and tell us what your go-to jig weight is when the current starts ripping.

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Transcript

George Bucci 0:00

And as the peanut bunker and the mullet are coming out of the inlets, you know, then it's a whole different ballgame. You know, then you can find piles of weak fish feeding.

Why Weakfish Matter Again

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 0:14

Hello and welcome back to the Fat Dad Fishing Show. I'm your host, Rich Natoli. Tonight we're going to be talking about weakfish. It's a species that practically disappeared for over a decade in the mid-Atlantic, and I wouldn't say it's totally back, but it is fishable at this point. And uh as long as we're responsible with the fish that we catch, it looks like they're there just continue to surge back into the area. And I'll tell you what, uh, a lot of people don't think that they're a great fish to target. It's my favorite fish to target. It has been since and uh I was telling George, who's our guest, George Bucci, he's gonna be on in a moment. I was telling him backstage, it's my favorite because it was my grandfather's favorite. So I kind of took it over. And uh I don't know. I just love going out and targeting them, and you can now. It's it's one of the we're back in the the time where you could say I'm going weak fishing today, and you should expect out of yourself to come back with weak fish at the end of the day, or at least have landed multiple weak fish every day. So George is coming on. We're gonna talk about that light tackle. Let's just call this seven plus tips for targeting weak fish in the summer, although we'll talk about other seasons as well. Before we jump into that and bring George on, go through the sponsors real quick. We have Great Day Outfitters on Radio Road in Tuckerton, New Jersey. If you want to test drive a kayak, and I always recommend that if you're going to buy one, I don't even care if it's a fishing kayak. You got to get in the water with it and test it out before you drop the thousands of dollars. Call Paul, call the shop, get down there. He's right on a lagoon. He's got the launch, he'll launch multiple kayaks for you. Test them out, see what really works for you. I almost bought a Hobie back in the day, and I was fortunate enough. This is before Great Bay existed, but I was fortunate enough that a guy said, Hey, try mine, and I couldn't do it. I I have no knee issues, but I couldn't do it. It hurt my knees. So I got an old town and it works perfectly. It's a whole different motion. I'm not saying get old town. I'm just saying go out and test it. It's it's well worth the time, it's worth the effort, and Paul will set you up, right? Then we have Quad State Tune with Kevin Driscoll. He is the owner of Quad State Tune, and he is the guy that's going to get your Toyota truck, whether it's a Tacoma, Tundra, 4Runner, even a Lexus 460 and 470. Great engines in those vehicles, but they can be better. He's got the engine tunes for it. They're not thousands of dollars either. So if you want better torque, better mileage, better horsepower, more responsive throttle, and to get rid of that gear hunting that you get on the Tacoma specifically, give him a call. His number is 44633-5975. See if it'll work out for you. And the final one, if you're buying, selling, or thinking of investing in real estate in southeastern Pennsylvania, well, that's me. Give me a call. I am at WhiteGirt Realtors Cornerstone in southeastern Pennsylvania. Actually, manage the Bluebell office, work out of multiple offices all over the region. Got a closing this week in Reading, so all the way up in Reading. I've had closings out in York County, Delaware County, all over the place. So if you're interested, let me know. Love working with people that watch the show. And it's great because we get to talk fishing as we're going through the houses or talking about selling house. You can give me a call at 267-270-1145 or Natolirealestate at gmail.com. And with that, let's just jump right into this one and bring George on screen. George,

Meet George Bucci And The Plan

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 3:45

good to see you back. Going on, Red. Man, I'm excited about this one. It's tough to get it's it's tough to come up with topics. And I've had this topic kind of like percolating for months. Months. I have so many actually let me put it up on screen so people can see. These are the notes that I have put together over the months. I think I have seven or eight pages of notes that I wanted to do for multiple episodes. And when we were talking and you said, hey, let's do light tackle weak fish, I was like, oh, I I'm ready. Somebody wants to talk about it. So I'm excited. So thanks for coming on.

George Bucci 4:25

Yeah, you're welcome. It's one of my favorite things to do in the summertime. I mean, I've been doing it for God. I mean, I've been doing that as long as I've been striper fishing, you know, in the summer when there's nothing to do. And this was before the whole sheep's head praise took over. In the summertime, we would, that's what we would do. And that's going back. I probably was doing it pretty successfully when there really wasn't supposed to be many of them around, back in like the 90s, maybe early 2000s. Early 2000s. Yeah, not I mean, there was a peak there where they came back and it really got good. And then it kind of died off again until just maybe the last five years. It's been pretty good.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 5:04

It has been good. And and not only are there numbers, but there's also some size returning to them. So you know, you talk about, you know, you have different names for the big fish. It's the tide runner, is what and people would say, I got a tide runner, it's 24 inches. I'm thinking, I remember 30 plus inch tide runners. Yeah, no.

George Bucci 5:22

I mean, you do you remember you remember the 80s, the Delaware Bay days, when you know they would kill trash cans with, you know, 10-pound wingfish. Yeah, I remember and my dad used taking me to the old Corson's bridge, and the guys would line up and they were just slinging big wakies over the rail. And I was, you know, little. I was like, oh my God, they're huge. You know, they look bigger when you're small, but they were they were all giants.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 5:46

They were all big. I so my so it was again, it was my grandfather's favorite fish to target. So we go fluke fishing and he would go for weak fish. We would go for bluefish, and he was always looking for the weak fish. And he knew where when we get into bluefish, he'd be like, Well, I know where the weak fish are, and we're fishing right there. And he's pulling weak fish and we're pulling blues. Yeah. And then I like an idiot, I'm all the way on the bottom, so I'm pulling sharks. But but I remember we had a house on 114th Street in Stone Harbor, and in the mornings we'd sit down for breakfast. He'd always get donuts, and we'd be sitting down there, and he would always kind of position himself so he could see out into the bay and into the channel, and they would come up the channel and you just see fish breaking. Yeah. And he'd be like, he'd be like, bluefish, bluefish, weakies. And then me and my brother would run down and jump in the rowboat. You know, we're just little kids, we're rowing across the bay, and we're, you know, by the time you catch up to him, you get like one or two casts, but you could get like huge weak fish coming through this like eight foot deep bay because it was just some minor channel going through. Yeah. Those days disappeared, my friend.

George Bucci 6:50

Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, once in a while you still you'll still run into stuff like that now.

Overfished Status And Predation

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 6:56

Yeah, yeah. Well, there there are ways to to target them now. I do want to make it clear to people that they are technically, unless it just changed, they are technically in the quote unquote overfished category. And I just want to clarify that for people. That's the status on the numbers. It is not due to fishing. It is not due to commercial. So I know a bunch of people, they immediately react to damn commercial. No, it's not. It's not the commercial fishermen, it's not the rec fishermen. The best guess that the experts have is it's natural predation and the the ecology of the area has changed to the negative for the weak fish. So very low recruitment in the the spawning stock and it's very spread out, worse than striped bass.

George Bucci 7:45

They're just unfortunate that they're always they're when they're small, the spikes. When they're migrating, it's like it's kind of a bad time for them to be migrating because the big blue fish terrorize them. I I've been to Isla Beach where there's just halves of the little spike wakies washed up all over the place from the blue fish. The dolphin love them. You know, dolphin rip through them.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 8:07

I got a story about that.

George Bucci 8:10

Stripers in like Montauk. You know, you go up there at the August moon, that's the weak fish moon up there for this, you know, to catch striped bass.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 8:17

Yep, yeah. So the the the experts blame it on predation. They say striped bass is one of them, dolphin is the other, and the third is dogfish. Oh, yeah. And they specifically talk about the spiny dogfish, the one that is now protected or was protected for years, and that's kind of what's destroyed it. So when you see the dolphin coming through, and and there was a time where I went out fishing with John Creely, we're out on the kayaks behind Avalon, and we're just working our way up back towards Patty's hole, and we're gonna target weak fish, and they are all over. I mean, our our things are, but they're the spikes. So you're like, well, there's got to be some big ones back in here. We're gonna go back, we're gonna drift for some fluke, but we're gonna hit the weak sh the weak fish spots. And wouldn't you know it was it was like the flight of the Valkyries, like you could you could hear it in your head as you turn around and you see this just massive waves coming towards you, and you see it's a pod of dolphins coming through the backwaters. They were, I mean, we're we're watching them on our sonars. Like there's they're they're flashing by on the side scans. Yeah, and the next thing you know is the water is just shimmering with scales.

George Bucci 9:27

Yeah, yeah.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 9:28

They went through for about 25 minutes and then they just turned around and left, and all you could see are little pieces of fish all over the place. They destroyed it. Destroyed it. They destroyed like football fields of them. It was crazy.

George Bucci 9:41

Yeah, yeah. They love them.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 9:43

Yeah, yeah. So we can blame them, but they are there. You can target them, and there are ways to do it, and that's what we're gonna cover today. So I'm gonna say that I'm gonna retitle this and say it's gonna be seven plus tips because I know I have at least seven. I know you have at least seven. So maybe we end up with seven, maybe we end up with twenty-three. Let's just talk about light tackle, weak fish, and let's jump in.

Slow Retrieves And Summer Timing

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 10:04

Where do you want to start?

George Bucci 10:05

And and I mean, and my way isn't the only way. You know, how I target them isn't the only way to target them. There's probably there's, you know, a dozen ways you can do it. And I've caught them in other ways that that I don't even do anymore, you know? Yeah. Well, I don't start targeting them. I wait until my striped bass run is over, which is usually towards the end of May, maybe the beginning of June. And be honest with you, by then it's usually a little late for you want some of those bigger weak fish. It's a little late to start, you know. If you're gonna start targeting, they show up in April. You know, the the netters in the Delaware Bay start getting the big weak fish in April. So by the time I start, I'm not looking for that. If I someday maybe I will, I'll go, okay, I'm tired of the striped bass chase, and I'm just gonna I'll try for big weak fish. And I know guys that do it. Uh I know they had a tough year this year as well, uh, with big weak fish. Yep. And and usually when I do get the my bigger weak fish now, it's it's accidental. My the biggest weak fish I'll get are like are mid to maybe upper 20 inch range.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 11:08

That's kind of where I am right now. Yeah, it's it's I I haven't gotten the 30 inchers, no 10 pounders in you know in in what 20 years, 15 years. Yeah. But you can catch a mid mid to upper 20s.

George Bucci 11:22

Yeah, oh yeah, absolutely. And usually I do every year. You know, 27, 28 inches, you can you can get that fairly often if you go enough.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 11:32

Well, that's and that's the thing. And I I do want to point out so what you're saying about the timing, they are very temperature sensitive. So I the ideal temperature for them, the water temperature is is a lot lower than it is in the summer. But that doesn't mean that you can't catch them in the summer. You can catch them in 90 degree water.

George Bucci 11:50

Yeah.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 11:51

But their ideal zone really kind of tops out in the low to mid-70s. So once you get above that, you have to start looking at they're they're they're not going to be as aggressive. And where I'm going with this is I start leaning if I want to be really productive, more towards the night bite at that time. So you get a little bit of the cooler water.

George Bucci 12:14

Yep. An incoming tide, night.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 12:17

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's as many, as many of the factors as you can stack on top of each other.

George Bucci 12:22

Yeah, yeah.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 12:23

Yeah, but it's kind of like it is similar to striped bass in that you know, it goes to a pure night bite once you get into the summer, in the backwaters at least. Yeah. And and weak fish, it's not a pure night bite, but it is a much better night bite.

George Bucci 12:37

And I I say, you know, when when I've been on your show before and we've talked about striped bass, and I always just pound how slow I like to fish for striped bass. And when I go to weak fish, I go, I see it's even slower for me. Like I am incredibly slow, almost not even reeling. As light as I can go, you know? Yep. Because feeling them hit is like sometimes it's just a tick. I mean, just such a subtle tick. And the rod and the line and everything, everything has to play the right part in feeling that subtle tick.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 13:12

Yeah. And you know, it's a it's a good point that you bring, and it it goes to their biology with the slowness of the retrieve. So what what I I guarantee you 99% of people don't realize is that weak fish are up near the top range of visual feeders. So they're they're feeding based on sight more than they are on smell. So which which also goes into the weight of the the lures, right? Yeah when you when you drop the weights, you get different action on the lures. It's gonna sink faster, it's gonna sink slower, it's gonna, it's gonna flutter more, it's going to be more natural. That's why the night bite is great for them because they see very well, but they see profiles very, very well. So if you can present naturally and maintain contact with that lure, it's often like the colors, they they almost don't matter to me, at least. I I don't really care what color. I just go for like the shading. So at night I do the darker colors just because I get a clearer, I believe, a clearer profile in dark waters that way. But it's a biology thing.

George Bucci 14:20

And I'm strictly I'm strictly jigs. For me, there's no little plugs or anything. It's strictly jigs. And you know, the weight that I use of that jig is definitely based upon how much water's moving in front of me and the depth of the water in front of me. And it's essential that you get that weight right, that you can go the the speed without dragging the bottom and just kind of sweep that jig across the front of me and let it kind of sweep away from me as slow as I can. I mean, you really got to get it down to like almost the sixteenth of an ounce for me. You know.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 14:54

Yeah, it's it's you know, you talk to some of the, you know, some of the the old heads that have never stopped targeting weak fish and never stopped being successful even through that really rough period. And most of them will will likely tell you that it's it's more about the weight. And yeah, so you only use jigs. When I'm when I'm going for weak fish, now okay, I I'll say this right now, we can talk about it later. Grass shrimp is a good bait for you can use baits. There are certain times of the year that you want to use grass shrimp when they're present. So, like the late June when there's a migration in September, October.

George Bucci 15:31

Yeah.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 15:32

Yeah, it's great. That's not what I do though. No, not me either. So for me, if I'm going weak fish and that's all I'm targeting, I'm only bringing jigs and soft plastics, but I'm bringing I'm bringing, whereas for fluke, I'll bring two sizes. That's it. Yeah. I'm going for weak fish, I'm bringing the house. I'm bringing every different weight jig head that I have when I'm going out there.

George Bucci 15:55

I'm usually from a half ounce down to a sixteenth of an ounce.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 16:00

Okay. I I will go up to three quarters, but I very, very rarely use a three-quarters. Yeah. But yeah, half ounce, and then I'm down into freshwater gear, to be honest with you. I just buy the freshwater gear and use that.

George Bucci 16:14

Yeah. Yep.

Jig Heads Plastics And Rod Setup

George Bucci 16:16

I mean, like I have I I brought some of the stuff that I use. This was one this was one that I dug up. You can see I don't know if you can see how beat up this is, but yeah, this was this was like last year's jig that was in like my coffee cup. You know, and I think this is a I think this is an eighth of an ounce right here. So I and uh, you know, this was a uh I mean I'll just this was like my a Corson's inlet special right here. You know, you go to the courses and shell beds and you know I'll sweep an eighth ounce there with with light tackle. And my light tackle for me is I I use the Sentry Demon, which can throw 132nd to one ounce. I've thrown one ounce with it. And I have that paired with I have 15 pound braid with 15 pound fluoro, which I can is you could probably consider an overkill, but I also striper with that rod. On a uh a 3,000 sustain. So it's very light. I can still turn around and you know, when you're weak fish in this time of year, you're bound to hook a cal nose ray, which I did the other day that was about 30 pounds, and was able to land that 30 pound cownose ray with that light tackle. I mean, it took me forever.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 17:30

Were you on a boat?

George Bucci 17:31

No, I was on a jetty. I had to walk it off. Walked it off the jetty onto a sand beach, landed it, got the jig out, walked back out on the jetty, and then got snagged and broke my jig off. And that would that make me so angry that I left.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 17:45

Yeah, I was gonna say that would make me leave probably at that point after all that.

George Bucci 17:48

I was like, I'm not retiring, I'm done.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 17:50

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That that's a good that's God saying, okay, George, you're done. Yeah, still go home.

George Bucci 17:56

Go power wash the deck.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 17:58

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I I think that you know, one of the so I I love that setup. You it's a longer shank hook.

unknown 18:05

Yeah.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 18:05

It's essentially it's essentially a thin wire hook.

George Bucci 18:09

Yeah, this is this is a a longer city jig head. And if you look, you can see how thin that is, which I don't really normally use on the the bass assassins. And I I love my bass assassins, like the whites, the these have been my kills, but uh usually I'll use a quarter ounce Kalen on these. And you see the hooks flip back a little bit. And so this is like currently one of my favorites. Uh Lunker City does have a round jig head. This one's a little lighter. It uses 316, and I have them, I have that rigged. I think this is uh a little bit of a lighter jig. Yeah, but yeah, I'll go through. But when I'm using I this is all I used to use back in the like late 90s, early 2000s, or the Lumper Cities, and you would rig them up on a finesse, right? You'd line that up, okay.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 19:06

That's what I'm using most often is a finesse.

George Bucci 19:09

Love them. Love them. You know, you take a little you take a little bit off the tip there, and you can see they they line up perfectly. And because these are are thin like these, the way they glide through the water, you it's you can't really mimic that. It's like silver sides, which is I think a lot of times that's what these weak weak fish are eating. They're eating silver sides and small baits. So yeah, that's pretty much they're the things that I like the best. Every once in a while, I'll use something with a little bit of a bigger paddle. And these are also Lunker City salt shakers. And the salt shaker is one of my favorite paddle tails for everything. Just because it's got the oversized paddle, even on a small bait, you know, and it gives this bait so much life. The whole bait shakes. The the whole bait will shake back and forth while the tail's going double speed. So that's one of my favorite paddles. Yeah.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 19:58

You know, I I think a lot of people they just grab paddle tails and they, you know, they're not they're not all created equal.

George Bucci 20:05

I was just gonna say not all not all rubber is the same.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 20:08

Uh no, and and you know, I I think the point that you made is also important about match the profile to the jig head that you're using. If you're using a thin jig head and you want the natural presentation, which for weak fish you do, you absolutely strike grass. I would say you don't have to, you don't have to, especially migration ones. That that's just my opinion. I I think you have more tolerance out of the fish at that point.

George Bucci 20:34

If I have to do it, like if the only jig heads I have, and and uh you know, I'm I'm gonna make things work the best I can. But right, yeah, I try to get like on a rounder bait, like I mean you can see how that's a that's a rounder bait and how that that fits on there kind of nicely. And then when you get those slender baits, you want, you know, they make a head for that. And and even some of these smaller, like these new style, they kind of fit on there pretty good.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 20:57

Like I well, that flares out, right?

George Bucci 20:59

Yeah, a little bit. Yeah, it flares out a little bit, but and then when I get to my heavier stuff, and this is about as heavy as I'll go, I I believe that's a half ounce, and that fits on there real nice. As a matter of fact, I I cut the tip of that off. You can see I took the tip of that off just so it would fit a little bit better on there. These are all beat up.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 21:19

You can tell that's been pulled off a couple times.

George Bucci 21:21

Yeah, they've all been pulled down. Most of these have been used several times.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 21:24

So turn that turn that over. Is there a rip right above the the bend?

George Bucci 21:28

It's covered in the it's uh it it's just shredded. Like and you can see the key the fang marks. Uh there's like bang marks in it. And uh yeah, I mean this is caught the share of fish. And what what if I if I were to fish heavier, deeper water for some reason, you know, something like this would would get it done. Oh that that's as big as I'm gonna throw. If I have to throw that, usually I'm like, I don't want to do this anymore. You know, and I'll leave. Yeah, I y and you're you know, these are something that everybody uses in pink and and wo pearl. chartreuse the zooms.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 22:03

So I don't I like I said before, I I don't really focus at all on color, with the exception of I do like pink zooms. I don't know why. And maybe it's because that's that's what grandad used. Yeah. Pink and white. That's all I do. That's all I use. I do use I do use a really dark purple with gold flex at night. Just to get a little bit of flash off of it, just a little bit to help. I don't think it does help, but in my mind it does. So I I do like the darker profile the darker baits to get the profile, but I like I like when they have some some metallic glint that's good.

George Bucci 22:44

You can see the gold flake all like just about my you know I love the gold flake unless I'm using the straight whites and even the finesses have uh gold flake in them. Yeah. I do love the how the the the flake in my in my case.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 22:59

Yeah it just gives a little extra as far as I'm concerned. Yeah. So there's one thing I I do want to mention this as far as when to go what well let me ask you what time of day does it matter to you what time of day or where where in the tide cycle are are you going to go?

George Bucci 23:16

Well I used to

Tide Windows And Current Breaks

George Bucci 23:17

let go in at night. You know I'd get out there uh if I had the right tide which you know I I try to work around the higher tide the high tide last city incoming first city outgoing for the most part in most of the spots. Not it's not necessary especially if you're going to be out like all night targeting you can bounce around but lately for the last probably three or four years I I like to get up when I see that high tide's at like four or five o'clock in the morning I like to get up at like two get to where I'm going to fish and fish that incoming last of the incoming and some of the outgoing uh into the sun up. And there's been times you know in the last three, four years where I've been picking it fish into sunrise and then and it continues until nine or ten o'clock in the morning. Yeah. So it's the same pick a fish, you know, and I maybe I'll get 20 fish in that session.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 24:07

Yeah I so that that lines up with what I do. I'm typically sticking to the the last two first two I I will also fish Slack. I I actually do have decent success with them at Slack. Yeah but the one thing I'll say is when I'm doing that the the one key that I will say is it's not necessarily because of that time it's because of the currents you it it starts to ease. They they don't like fighting current. So when you're looking for the spots the tide cycle where you are in the tide cycle and how fast the the current is flowing is definitely going to have an impact. But there are other things to consider. Find some structure get behind a bridge piling get behind a dock piling that's going to break definitely important current yeah and if you get two currents coming together if you can get that that still spot in between that's even better because they'll they'll just hang there and they're they're built for quick speed not long endurance. So if you get far past that spot when you cast just start over.

George Bucci 25:12

They're not going to chase it a mile they get incredibly shallow too you know that's why the lighter you can go to be able to work some of that shallow water whether if you're on a sod bank which you know I've put a ton of I don't I'm sure everybody's a lot of people are familiar with Seven Bridges Road. I mean there's a ton of ton of space out there but there's some fantastic sod banks on Seven Bridges I remember going out there where guys would hang they would bring generators and hang lights off the bridges with the generators running. It's a one-lane bridge and you know and they would fish the lights because I mean weak fish are attracted to the the bait fish is attracted to the lights and then the weak fish come right to the lights you know it's old technique. But I would get on the outside of the light on the side bank and it seemed like the bigger fish would always stay right on the edge of the light. Yeah right on the edge of the light they wouldn't quite go in and I would you know get six, seven pound weak fish while those guys were getting smaller weak fish.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 26:06

Yeah yeah yeah I mean they they're they are ambush predators right so they're they're going to take advantage of the the dark spots you know I'm thinking about a bridge that I used to fish before you know before I had my own boat and before I had a kayak that I really trusted myself in to go at night. So I would fish overnight for when the kids were young because I spent the day at the beach with them. I didn't want to miss that time. As soon as they went to bed I was out like as soon as it started getting dark I'd leave and I'd come back at like 4 30 in the morning, five in the morning and I would fish these bridges and I'd always look for the shadow lines. There is a spot I'm not going to mention this this would definitely be spot burning okay because because it's it's a spot that you can get from land. There is this spot that I'm thinking of since I was a little kid all the way up through two years ago was the last time I fished this spot. I was catching weak fish at will. It has not changed and and at night it's this perfect spot where two currents come together. It's on the outside of of lights. It is not Stone Harbor by the way people because a lot of people know that I I typically default to Stone Harbor but it's on the outside of the lights you can reach it from land. It's better if you have a boat or a kayak but you can reach it from land and you can get some big fish there and it's only eight feet deep. Yeah. It's only about eight I mean a give or take depending on where it is in the tide cycle but it it averages around eight feet deep. So it's not deep and there's not a ton of structure.

George Bucci 27:38

No it's the current relief comes from the where the current pushed to and set up like some of the small bridges that you wouldn't that you may see some people crabbing off of or you know or and catch you know small fish during the day but at night those those shadow lines and I can think of probably a dozen of them off the top of my head that I used to have like I'd call it my circuit around where I go from this spot to this spot to this spot to this spot until I found what I was looking for. And I might get one or two fish here, no fish here, a bunch of fish here and you just I would do that every night like the circuit. And you know and I I mean I don't I don't I don't do that anymore. I just now it's like when I see the tides right I'm going to get up in the morning because I enjoy that. I enjoy getting up seeing the sunrise and uh catching a few fish and then going to get you know some pastries your chesters you know get some dark yeah of course yeah oh man that's what it's all about. I got a great story for you real quick. Yeah good when I used to when I used to do it a lot and these were during my drinking days and just saying I haven't drank in 21 years but during my drinking days I do you remember Harris used to have a public dock fishing dock. Yeah yeah the marina there they had a public fishing dock and they had lights on it and we would go out there and I'd go out there with a big cooler and there'd be so many guys on that dock leaning on one side of it that the dock would lay you could you were literally laying on the fence and fishing and you know finessing weak fish and I was just throwing before we had limits throwing them and yeah I'm part of the problem I understand throwing them in the cooler throwing them a cooler and I would get probably a hundred of them in the cooler.

unknown 29:18

Yeah.

George Bucci 29:18

And then I took them to this Chinese restaurant and I'd knock on the back door and the owner would come out and I'd open the cooler and he looked at it he looked at he'd look at me and he'd go you drink free tonight and I'd and I'd go inside and just sit at the bar and drink and he would have wheat fish on the menu for a month.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 29:36

That's awesome. That's awesome. Yeah the drink it does I used I used to sell some you know I didn't know I was in college and I used to sell me and my buddy used to sell fish to various fish markets in South Jersey. We'd just go out fishing and I would I was a bouncer at La Costa and I worked in liquor store mostly in Sea Isle. So I'd work in the liquor store or I'd bounce at night I only bounced a few times but then I'd spend like I'd have most of the day to just go fishing. So we just jump on the boat and we go fishing. And even if it was bluefish we bring a a big bluefish back yeah and we bring like 20 of them and they're like yeah we'll give you six dollars a fish we're like back then it back then it was it was three dollars a beer at the Princeton it was beer cool we got multiple beers tonight. So yeah we used to do that I I'm pretty sure now looking back it was illegal but they were they were all paying us yeah we weren't we weren't keeping illegal tog nobody cared back then you know we didn't think about the future and and uh the regulations weren't what they are now no i'm glad I'm glad they have changed but yeah I was I was definitely part of the problem back then not anymore let let me just close up this one thing about the grass shrimp. So grass shrimp is if you want to fish with bait it's not the only one to use but it is probably the best to use when you can time it around the migration and when these grass shrimp are actually moving. So that's going to be you know typically late April it's usually May into early June in New Jersey Delaware Southern New York time frame if you can chum grass shrimp and then just put some on a hook and just kind of float it out there it works amazing. You get a you get like a second smaller migration I don't even know if it's technically the migration but I think it is a migration in like September October give or take depending on how far north or south you are that's a great time so again you you yeah you can do it then too you can catch these on mud minnows or silversides you can catch them on natural baits.

George Bucci 31:40

Yeah you just got to put peanut bunker on a float you can keep them alive long enough are fantastic.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 31:45

Yeah yeah yeah if you can get them on a float that's lazy fish you look at them and die.

George Bucci 31:50

Yeah yeah peanut bunker the second that they touch a net they're done I mean and this time you're shedder crab shutter crab on a bucktail anchored up around a bridge you anchor up and if you you go with like again with the the weight the proper weight you anchor up these these fish will be sitting just like striped bass mostly in the shadows and coming into the light to so you stay in the light and drop something back like an eighth ounce bucktail quarter ounce bucktail with a piece of shedder crab on it you can literally you don't have to do anything you can you throw it out there and put it in the rod holder.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 32:23

Yeah just let it sit drink your beer yeah drink your beer have your cigarette and just relax you're gonna have it put it on a circle hook if you have them I think it's important to to point out that they're not bottom fish you can catch them at the bottom but you don't want to be hitting the bottom you you need to be off the bottom to get them and that this is where a lot of people so I have videos where I'm showing that I'm catching weak fish but I'm actually fluke fishing. But if you look in a lot of them I have my I still have my my dropper loop and I have my bucktail but I move the dropper loop way up so it's it's a couple feet off the bottom and I'm not actually pounding the bottom with the bottom bucktail. I'm putting about a foot off of the bottom whereas I typically do about three, four inches is what I'm hoping for for the fluke. I'll just lift it up in when I get to a weak fish area and you can catch it on the same things. I almost always caught catch it on the top teaser hook which is a smaller profile with a with a soft plastic. It's and it's not it's not always gulp it's you know I'll just put a soft plastic on there but it they are typically going to be suspended they're not going to be just hanging out on the bottom. Yeah so make sure and and you can look if you don't pick up anything else there are fluke spots that will produce weak fish. You just have to move up you just have to move up because they're looking for very similar types of things you know the current breaks they're looking for where the bait's coming out they don't want the strongest currents so if you want to be really lazy or you know you you fish if you fish rock piles at night and you got to expect if you're gonna fish rock piles and you're gonna fish them the right way you're gonna lose jigs.

George Bucci 34:06

You can't get upset about losing jigs. So you got to bring plenty of jigs you got to bring plenty of rubber I mean I'll I'll go through you know I have no problem going through two packs of these and uh and a couple packs of jigs in in a trip sometimes if I want to fish it the way I need to fish it because you know if you're standing on the rocks and you're throwing straight out away from the rocks you're gonna get some fish but you're probably not going to do the best you can as you would if you were trying to like throw parallel to the rocks and and stay as close as you can without getting stuck and as slow as you can without getting stuck. And finding that right that sweet spot is is probably the most important thing you know where you can do it without losing everything.

Jetties Rock Piles And Casting Angles

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 34:46

Yeah and I think so let's talk about one of the one of the best places in my opinion to target them is off a jetty oh yeah you know it is I I think it is my favorite spot to go to target weak fish. Yeah and there are certain things that you look for is there a particular thing that you're looking for when you're on a jetty and you just say okay I'm gonna go for weak fish at this point?

George Bucci 35:11

Me, well I mean I have a I have one particular spot. I have a couple actually I mean a couple of them are are public knowledge. I mean I do love going to courses and just working the shell beds the shell beds you know hold tons of bait they hold grass shrimp they hold small bait so and there's a ton of room there. Sometimes you have to put some time in there to to get the results and work different tides but that's been tried and true area for weak fish. Some of the rocks that I've been work I work now I have a spot that I work now has a defined like tide line that's it's basically out of the tide and it has underwater structure all around outside of me like rocks and there's there's all kinds of rocks around that I know are out there underwater. I do like to to work that slowly because now I can I don't have to work right along the jetty I can actually work you know I'll work like two feet of water one way and then I know that it drops off to where there's some more moving water and I can sweep across some some rock bottom and then out in deeper water I know I have some rocks out there as well. Yeah I know just from tog fishing in the back, you know where all this stuff is right. So you work that you work that structure and there I mean and there's some other spots that I know that where there's underwater rock pile humps, you know, and I know that from being in the boat togging and you know you just you remember that and go I'm I know exactly I'll look at it from land and go, okay, there's a street sign right there. There's another sign right there. I need to stand between the two I know where this rock pile is now. Yeah. So I I take that with me for you know when I go week fishing.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 36:48

There there's a spot that that so I'll say it's a jetty but it's submerged. Like you can't you if you don't know it's there you would never know it's there. That's perfect. Like you can't see it anymore. Yeah well maybe you can this year but you you couldn't see it for for five ten years. But there are there are there are breaks in the depth and if you go so you you have to wade out there. So you're fishing a jetty but you're waiting in order to do it.

George Bucci 37:19

Yeah.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 37:20

And there is a drop off so it's actually not even the shallow water that I'm fishing. Like typically when I'm fishing on the beach I'm like looking you know just under knee deep is where I start fishing for this. There's really nice structure and rocks and I know that it's it's it's deeper on the backside of the rocks like it's kind of like exposed back there. So it's a great drop. So as the water is coming out if you drop your baits in there and if there are weak fish there, yeah it'll just kind of pull it right over that rock and fall down the backside. And as long as you're not letting it go on the bottom but you just kind of like suspend it and start reeling over and just slow it down and just kind of let it fall down the back. Oh such a great spot. I don't know if it's still like that this year because I have not been in that area at all. But it it's it's something to look out for and you can spot this like I I learned about this because I was on the beach. Right and I was on the beach so I know that there are rocks there and I know that they don't go away. They just get covered or they get exposed but you can't and that's what you got to do.

George Bucci 38:24

Yeah you you have to go out and try different areas and and you have to be observant even like if you're taking a walk with your wife or you know or or just out doing something else when I'm on the water I I'd like to stay observant and try to remember things for future reference. You know what other species of fish is this going to hold you know at different times of year that's always probably going to hold something.

Fall Runs And Finding Feeding Piles

George Bucci 38:46

I mean you know even when once you get into fall you know the the pattern of these fish will change the way these fish are moving around will change and they'll start to school up and as the peanut bunker and the mullet are coming out the inlets, you know, then it's a whole different ball game, you know then you could find piles of of weak fish feeding.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 39:03

Yeah and that and you know a big thing to to mention to people is a lot of times people will catch a weak fish and they're like, oh you know just a random weak fish. If you find the spot there are going to be a lot of weak fish. Oh yes yeah and if you find a spot at a certain tide cycle time they're probably going to be there for weeks. Like they don't just pick up and move. Now they won't stay there all day like they'll move but they often come back to the same spots and they will just they'll just kind of stack up there suspended so don't fish the bottom typically but if you can find spots like that you can often go back you know oh it's today at two o'clock well tomorrow at three o'clock is probably the right time and then the next day at four and then wow it's starting to get dark at 9.30 and then and that's next week. So next week at 930 I'm gonna hit it at night. Now you got nighttime and you had the right tide and they're going to be sitting there. And I I think people often they pick it up and they say it's just a almost became like an exotic for a while there, right? Like oh wow I just lucked into it.

George Bucci 40:10

And nighttime if if you're out in the boat at nighttime or even on foot at nighttime, you know we still have plenty of we have resident bass around the difference when a weak fish hits the surface hits a bait on the surface and the difference between a bass hitting the surface is you can tell the difference at least I you can tell the difference instantly it's a completely different noise. You know the bass will make more of a popping sound and you'll hear the the weak fish are more of a slurping sound. Like they come up and they they slurp on the surface and I can not even I don't even have to see stay it I could be somewhere and I'll hear it and I'll be like oh that was weak fish. That was weak fish that just came up yeah yeah once you once you hear it enough times you uh you you know it right away and then you just got to start you know trying to figure it out what the hell they're feeding I I just I love the challenge of them and part of it is because they're you know when I was growing up they were easy it was really easy you know but did you ever catch them on topwater?

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 41:07

Yeah it it not not many I caught I one I could so I can't even say it was topwater. I wasn't trying to fish topwater I caught it on a fly and the fly was the fly was just like probably a couple inches under but it was like one of those I was fishing a sod bank actually I think my brother was driving my boat and I'm on the front and I think I no I don't think I know I was fishing for striped bass at dusk. Yeah and I casted it and as soon as it hit and went and started to sink it was a Klauser minnow it it it took it I was like oh it's a small striped bass and I pulled it down like oh it's a weak fish. Yeah yeah so I so yeah it was at the top of the water but it was not on top water wasn't I got one on a spook and I was fishing for bass and I was blown away.

George Bucci 41:53

I was blown away couldn't believe it. And it and and and it never happened again and I I you know I fit for bass in the backwater with spooks a billion times and never got another one like that.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 42:04

But you know you would think that it would be more common though because they do they do attack up right they they attack up so you know you want to be at their level or ideally a little bit above they are fishing or not fishing they are attacking profiles. So you would think and speckled trout one of the best ways to catch them is on topwater. All the time on topwater.

George Bucci 42:26

Yeah I can't say that when fishing topwater intentionally I've somebody catches them on topwater I'd love to hear I'd love to I'd love to know you know if somebody's mastered that I've because I certainly have not yeah and and we're talking pop topwater on purpose like it with a topwater lure not like what happened to me. Like a spook yeah I was using a spooky popper something like that.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 42:49

Yeah. Yeah I no I I never have I I've never done that.

George Bucci 42:55

No my favorite is as light as I possibly can with as light of a of a tackle as I possibly can with a uh on the jig in an area that I know I can just I can really really go slow and feel that's and and you better be quick. And a lot of times you know you'll you'll miss if you miss it you bring it in a lot of times I'll sit there and I'll study the bait and you may see like one tear in it. And that one tear is probably that that smaller weak fish that has just one tooth. And it's not until they get like over like 17 inches that you'll that they'll have the two teeth and then you'll see that it'll have like two tears in it. You know I don't know okay I had I got the fangs. Yeah.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 43:38

Yeah yeah at least you feel better about it at that point.

George Bucci 43:41

Yeah I see the one like ah little guy.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 43:43

Totally off topic let me just ask you this have you ever seen somebody try to lip a weak fish?

George Bucci 43:49

I have not no I'd like to yeah I saw I wish I had it I saw it on YouTube.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 43:55

A guy was so excited it wasn't a weak fish it was speckled trout but they had the same fang Setup. And this dude, he's like, What is it? What is it? And he grabs it and he sticks his thumb in its face. And that thing clamped. And the the fangs were perfect. They went like they they they tore the sides of his thumb. He was gushing. It was hilarious. But yeah, I give him credit. He didn't drop it. He's like, What the a lot of language came out and everybody's laughing at him. But yeah. People keep in mind, they do have teeth and they do hurt. Yeah.

George Bucci 44:27

Um,

Paper Mouths Hooksets And Drag

George Bucci 44:28

and they do have you like you have to play a weak fish right, you have to be pretty gentle and and have your drag set. You can't fish them with a lockdown drag and expect to get most of your fish in because they they have extremely sensitive, like paper thin mouths. They call them paper mouths. They used to call them paper mouths. And you'll tear, you'll rip a lot of jigs out of the out of their mouth.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 44:53

Yeah, so I had that written down and wanted to talk about that. So that is a huge, a huge part of it is you can't do that aggressive hook set. It's the opposite of what I typically do on other species. When I'm weak fishing, I don't do that. Actually, when I speckled trout, it's the same type of mouth. Yeah, I don't do it either. It becomes very important. So you talked about the rod that you use. I I do want to say if you want to be successful at hooking and landing and going beyond just getting the strike, you really have to understand your equipment and let the equipment do what it's supposed to. So you have to have the right rod tip. You set the hook, and and actually, when I set on I'll just say speckled trout because I've caught a lot more speckled trout in the last five years than I have weak fish. But I'm not doing a full set. I'm just I'm bringing it tight.

George Bucci 45:44

Yeah.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 45:45

Right? I'm bringing it tight and I'm letting the rod do it. And I might do a little like flick, like I like I'm doing like a twitch on a retrieve just to make sure it's set. But it's so easy to set that you know, once it's in, it's in. But then the other thing is you cannot let up on that fish. There has to be tension. Yeah, it doesn't have to be a ton of tension, but if you lose contact with that fish, you're gonna lose. I mean, yeah, because the hole's gonna be bigger than the hook.

George Bucci 46:12

Yeah.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 46:12

Every single unless you get unless you're lucky, not lucky, or maybe it is starting to get in the mouth.

George Bucci 46:17

Where yeah, where it's a little tougher, but the weak fish overall have just it's just like very easy to tear them and pop it pop a hook out or or just lose them. Or like you said, for lack of tension. And I I mean I I do pretty much the same thing. I like to really, as soon as I feel that light, that tick, you have to be lightning quick at just getting uh just popping that getting that hook in them. Just it's and it's not a full, I'm not you know, largemouth bass fishing on tour. It's just a quick little hook set. And then like you keep it tight, and you'll know right away what the size of weak fish it is, just based on how they fight. And then pound for pound. And they you know, even those the a 20-inch weak fish on light tackle is a blast. They're fun, they're gonna pull drag, and then once you start to get over 20 inches, you know, you're gonna think it's much bigger than it than it is when you get it in. You're gonna be like, oh, he's it's a 23-inch weak fish, and he, you know, battles me.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 47:18

Yeah, like a 23 to 25 inch weak fish is gonna fight as hard pound for pound as a 17-inch striped bass, which are insane. They're insane, yeah, right?

George Bucci 47:28

As soon as you hook a 17-inch striper, I mean, and depending on where and what the currents are like and everything, maybe even a little tougher. And you've got to remember, and you're using scaled down gear. I mean, it's it's a great opportunity, like even take freshwater gear out, uh, and use that. Oh, another important thing, I never, ever, ever use a clip. I always tie direct. Yeah, always tie direct. Yeah, I don't know what it is. I haven't, I I don't know why, but anytime I've had a I've tried to use a clip, I've I just haven't done well. And I'll take the clip off and tie direct and do better every time.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 48:05

I think it goes back to them having some of the best eyesight and being more visual feeders than anything. And the clips do interfere with the action as well. Yeah, but you can see clips underwater. I I would always tie direct on them. It's it's worth the extra second or two. But I I for a couple reasons, but it might it might have something to do with their eyesight, you know, being such visually attuned feeders.

George Bucci 48:32

I just I've never given it much more thought other than it works better.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 48:36

Yeah, you just know that it works better.

George Bucci 48:38

Yeah, yeah.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 48:39

I don't I can't say for sure why. I'm just making a guess there.

George Bucci 48:42

Yeah, I don't strip bass. I I'll put a 200 pound clip on, you know. They don't care. They don't care at all. Uh and weak fish are very leader shy. Um I'm not using fluoro for striped bass. It's all that's all by that way. Really, the only thing is weak fish, and uh and I do use it for sheep's head, but weak fish is it's for me, it's very important to have the flora. Even in dirtier water.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 49:08

Yeah, I'll I'll actually even say this. So I don't use clips for anything unless I'm surf fishing for striped bass. It's the only time I use them. With that said, I I have I have in the past used them in North Carolina for specs. I don't notice any issue at all. Like I'll still pick up specs. Oh, really? And everyone thinks that they're pretty much the same, but they do act differently. You do catch them in different spots. Like I don't know if people know there there are people that only target specs in New Jersey, and they will get violent if you try to tell people where they are. But you there are different spots, different times. They are totally different fish. So I just want to point that out. So if you if you think, well, I catch specs and I can use a clip, I don't think it necessarily translates over to weak fish, and I don't know why.

George Bucci 49:59

The best day of specs I ever had in New Jersey, I caught six of them on December 17th.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 50:07

That's a good time.

George Bucci 50:08

Yeah. And I mean that's how uh that late and I wasn't there looking for them, I was there looking for redfish and got well.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 50:16

That's the thing. If you can find a good redfish spot, it's a good spec spot usually. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I have one spot that I know holds specs. Not all the time, but it's one spot and it's the same spot since uh since I was a kid, and I caught one speck there. It's probably six years ago now. So I'm gonna say they're still there, but it's literally the same exact spot. Yeah. So yeah, it is in the Stone Harbor Wildwood vicinity. Good luck finding it, people.

George Bucci 50:45

Yeah, but even talking about specs in New Jersey, I'm I I feel like I'm gonna get threatened after this now.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 50:50

So I I've seen I've seen people threatened like not just physical violence, but like ready to do physical violence. I'm going to kill you.

George Bucci 51:01

And like your car's gonna not be in pieces when you get back to it.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 51:06

Yeah, I I actually talked to a guy uh after a tournament. He was at our table just sitting down afterwards. We're having some barbecue, and I was talking about specs. Just because I had just gotten back from North Carolina, it was like right after the 4th of July, like a few years ago. He's like, Oh, I love specs. He's like, Do you catch them up here? I was like, Now I can't say too much because people will know who this is. I didn't know who it was until he told me his n his name and a couple things. But anyway, he's a known person and he was telling me that for his reputation that he he has multiple people that are pretty bad people that have threatened him and will stalk him when he's out there because he shared. Oh boy, he shared with some people in public in front of like six people where to catch specs. So he spot burned them.

George Bucci 51:59

Yeah.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 52:00

He's like, this dude was like 75 years old. He's like, I didn't burn any spots, they weren't even born.

George Bucci 52:05

He was like, I've been fishing for him since the one of the forgotten like that, and the other these guys, other guys wouldn't even know about it, most likely.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 52:13

Yeah, yeah. I've never done well for specs in New Jersey, just to be honest with you. But I I've caught a couple in the city.

George Bucci 52:18

No, I've caught them, I've caught them accidentally while weak fishing, usually, you know, this time of year. I'm sure that if you you know you'll you may get five or six weak fish, and then all of a sudden you'll put one on the you know in front of you on the sand and you'll go, that that's not a weak fish. I've had that happen several times.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 52:33

And you know, I guess. They're under the same regulations because I guess fishing game or whatever they're called, they they don't want to worry about the difference.

George Bucci 52:44

Identical as far as you know what what I would do.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 52:47

It's pretty close.

George Bucci 52:48

Weak fishing specs. And I mean, and we've we've actually you know went spec fishing together when we were down in Maryland, and I'll be down there again in 10 days, going to the same spot. I'm looking forward to it.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 52:58

That was freaking so I I know we've talked about it on here, maybe even when you weren't on, because we are all still in awe of the day that you put in on those specs. Like we weren't ex so just so that everybody knows, we weren't expecting that this was going to be anything more than a quick trip before our charter started. And we're standing on these rocks, fishing out into this random I it was a river, you know, opening out into the Chesapeake. And there's George just changing lures. He's like, Oh, I'm gonna throw this on. There's a freshwater bait, and it's like spec, spec, spec, red, spec, spec, spec. And we're like, How many do you get? I got one bite. And you're just you were just bailing, and then you're like, Oh, I think I'll switch to this. We're like, Well, you use like a a a jitterbug or something like that. I used a chatterbait at one point. Chatterbait, chatterbait, yeah, yeah, yeah. Now you're out there with a chatterbait, and here we are with the actual things that you use for specs. And we're what was that even doing with the chatterbait? It was it was that was I have very few times in my life have I seen one person in the middle of some really good fishermen outdistance them by as far as you did that. It was I mean, you must have caught four times as many as anyone else.

George Bucci 54:14

And you were it though those kinds of fish, that kind of fishing, when you when you feel like you when you dial it in, you feel like you know, you dial it in and you just keep repeating the same thing over and over and just keep working. And everybody's been there. You know, I it's not like I didn't do anything special. I just dialed it in and you do you start doing the same thing over and over, and it's just working. And it was like specs, red fish, strife specs. You know, I was like, oh my god, there's a variety of fish here. This is fantastic. And I'm looking forward to going back there and seeing it. Did we just like you know get lucky that day? Because I haven't been back there since that day. So I'll be back there in another 10 days. I'm really looking forward to going there and seeing, and I'm going the day after my charter this time.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 54:57

Yeah. So what's funny is my wife and I are trying to figure out where are we going to move south, you know, in the next few years. Yeah. And I keep mentioning there, and part of it is that day. I just keep thinking, well, I know that there's fish are around. Yeah. I could live in that area. And you know, there's some beautiful towns down there too.

George Bucci 55:18

Literally the tip of the iceberg for an area like that. I mean, yeah, that's just the tip of the iceberg. That's a that's a public park.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 55:26

Yes, it was a public. That was the funny thing. It was there was nothing hidden about it. It was just we showed up at a park. The the one local guy with us said, Yeah, we could just try down here for a couple hours. And then our charter was pushed back a little bit. So we had a little extra time. But I will just say this for everybody. George had that look that that people get when they know they're on, but they don't want to say that they know. It was like every cast, like you had this smirk, like before it hit the water, you were almost turning and smiling, like, yeah, I'm getting one on this cast. And it was like we just kept looking at it. I remember talking to I was talking to one guy, he's like, Yeah, I don't know what he's doing, but I have the same thing on, I'm not getting anything. And you're there, you're like, just cast it like this. And you just turn as it's hitting the water and smile, it's hook up. I was like, damn, he is he is like locked in, locked in.

George Bucci 56:19

Yeah, yeah, it's it felt that way.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 56:20

That was a great morning, though. That was and everybody did well.

George Bucci 56:24

Everybody did well, but yeah, yeah, everybody caught fish, and that that was like you know, uh trip saver at the time. That was a trip saver.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 56:32

It was, it was because that was a yeah, we were pushed late, and then yeah, we had a whole that was a tough day too. It's fun, but it was a tough day. Yeah, I do want to mention, we're up at the hour. I do want to mention one thing to people that might be a little conservation-minded about

Handling Big Females And Safe Releases

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 56:48

weak fish. Uh, I did mention that they are technically overfish, so it is a a lower population than what we would like to see, even though it has rebounded. It these bigger fish are are most often, like most species, going to be females. So just be careful with them if you're going to have weak fish in years. Yeah, I I always say I won't keep the outside of fluke and one tog, I won't keep any fish unless it's gut hooked. I've not hooked I've not gut hooked a weak fish in I I don't think I've kept one in 20 years. Yeah, I haven't kept one in a long time. But the larger ones are going to be female, so just make sure you're you revive them if you're letting them go. If you're keeping them and it's legal, hey, go ahead. You do your thing. But just you know, keep in mind that the hotter the water, the more that you have to put in to revive them. They are very temperature sensitive and they are do you know what the water temperatures are right now around AC?

George Bucci 57:45

Mid-70s, like lows. Yeah, that it got very yeah.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 57:49

So they're they're they're already at the top of their their ideal range. So again, you can catch them into the 95 degree water, but yeah, they're they're really not I don't, as far as I'm concerned, they're not good table fare.

George Bucci 58:01

They're they're it's a mushy fish. If you were gonna keep one, you want to ice it, you bleed it and ice it. I iced them, I used to ice them overnight just so I could clean them. Otherwise, they're just mush. Yeah, but and you have to get them back into the water quickly, even after you catch them. They're very sensitive to your hands, you know, too much pressure on the gills. You you know, they're easy to kill. So you can't. They're very easy to kill, yeah.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 58:23

Yeah, luckily, they're also typically very easy to unhook. So you can often just bring them right up next to you and not even take them out of the water and just let the tension off the line and they'll they'll spit it pretty well.

unknown 58:34

Yep.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 58:35

Yeah, so I just wanted to mention that for those that are interested or wanted, you know, the larger ones are going to be the breeders and the the better breeders, and they're they're the females typically. So uh if that matters to you, just be just be careful with them to give a little extra care, a little extra time reviving them. But you know, you don't want to be holding them up and doing a lot of pictures, don't hold them vertical, you know, just support them the right way, just like you would a striped bass and get them back in the water. So yeah, so that's what I have. So I went through this. My list actually, you you hit over half of them. I had a list of 15. So we've already done so through the course of the conversation, maybe we didn't lay them out. Here's point number one, here's here's tip number two. But we we got at least 15 of them in there. You had a couple extras that I didn't have too. So I think we kind of covered what we wanted to cover for this

Final Tips Metals And Closing

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 59:26

one.

George Bucci 59:26

Yeah, but I mean when I'm fishing, uh, real quick, like with little the light tackle, I throw out, I don't start reeling right away. I want to know the rate of fall for my jig. So I usually will, by watching the line, I can see when that that rate of fall is and know what my what water depth is, and I'll usually count it out in my head so that I know when I get close to the bottom, maybe a foot off the bottom, I can start my slow retrieve without it just picking up weeds or getting stuck.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 59:54

Right. And there and that's the important thing. You want to make sure that you keep it off the bottom and you kind of know where it is. I mean, you do need to think a little bit when you're doing this.

George Bucci 1:00:02

Yeah. It's not like when it's not nighttime fluke.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 1:00:06

Yeah, nighttime fluke, you just throw it, let it hit the bottom, and just keep reeling it as the current pushes it towards you. I mean, that's literally all you have to do. That's not gonna get you weak fish. You're not gonna catch weak fish that way.

George Bucci 1:00:18

No, I mean you you you could, you will, you probably would, but you're not gonna do it any consistently.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 1:00:23

Not if that's your goal. If that's your goal to catch weak fish, that's not the way to do it. Yeah, yeah. Real quick, you ever use the Hopkins for them? No. No, everybody always says it's the it's the best lure for them. I I don't like them.

George Bucci 1:00:36

I've used uh I've tried small, very small jigs, like metal jigs. I think it was a cast master, like a very tiny one. Yeah, and then it it frustrated me because I it just didn't feel right to me. I couldn't get the hang of it in the first like three casts, so I took it right off.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 1:00:51

Uh I always end up catching bluefish on those.

George Bucci 1:00:54

Yeah.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 1:00:54

I only I would only use them on jetties or surf. I don't like using metals very often at all. If I'm not trolling, I I typically don't want to use metals. But yeah, I that's one thing that I never got. I'm sure that there are people that are watching or listening to this that are like, yeah, that's my first thing, a cast master or Hopkins.

George Bucci 1:01:13

Yeah.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 1:01:14

I just never got it to work well for me. No. Never. Through the 80s, 90s, and all the way up to today. I just have them.

George Bucci 1:01:23

In the fall for striped bass, yes. Not just, you know, Ava Jigs, but like Hopkins and Castmasters, when the fish are kind of out of my range with everything else, I will throw one of those on and and work it and do well. Yeah.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 1:01:38

You got the rod that you can trust to haul it. Yeah. Haul the metal. I always get nervous and have to break mine.

George Bucci 1:01:44

No. I know it's irrational. September the the those weak fish start moving down the beach. And I mean, and they've been pushing further and further north every year. They are, you know, they're catching them in Massachusetts, probably better than we are here now. Uh Long Island Sound is loaded with them, and that's a relatively new thing for them. So these fish are expanding their their horizons and moving. And this year, I can tell you right now, this year is an off year for me. It hasn't been good for weak fish. I'm waiting for that to turn around and change right now. But I hit a couple spots the other day and didn't get up by the county's right. That was it.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 1:02:19

So I'll say this. So that the number one location or region for this podcast is New York, New York City area. That's like by far, like Philadelphia, New Jersey, Maryland, not even close to the the yeah. And I know that they have to be having a good year because I've had multiple people ask for this topic this spring. Oh, no kidding. And and and they're from New York. So I'm thinking, okay, well, they're not telling me how they're doing. They're like, hey, this would be a good topic. Let's talk weak fish. And I'm assuming it's either because they're starting to see them push up there or but it seems like everything's pushing north. Yeah. Right. Everything. So hey, I'm I'm happy that if you can get better fishing up north, we're just gonna have something moving in south, right?

George Bucci 1:03:07

Yeah, I mean, if they're if it's good up there, you could reach out to me and I'll come up and check it out.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 1:03:11

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, just validate it, right? Let us all know.

George Bucci 1:03:14

Yeah.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 1:03:14

Uh well, hey, thanks for coming on. I appreciate it. Thank you. I think it's a great topic. Hopefully, people will be out there targeting some weak fish and share some photos and uh some picks. Even if you don't do it online, I will never dime you out if you don't want me to. I'll never dime them out for catching or keeping or yeah, no.

George Bucci 1:03:39

Like we discussed earlier, everybody fishes for their own reasons. So some people fish for food, some people fish for to clear their minds, some people fish for fish, some people fish for the sunrise. Uh everybody's got their own reasons.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 1:03:51

Yeah, we had a really interesting, well, I'm not gonna go into it. We had a really interesting discussion before we came on. I I wish that we would do an episode like that, but we got to talk about that a little bit. Another time. Another time we'll talk about it. George, thanks for coming on, everyone again. Um I'm hoping to be back next week live. Uh, I'm just gonna mention this one more time. Uh, my my daughter's expecting to have baby number two any day now. So if she does, I'm not going to be coming. So yeah, I'm really excited. It'll be granddaughter number two. And uh oh my gosh, I can't wait. Cannot wait. I've already got a fishing plank for uh granddaughter number one, already ready to go. So yeah, she's two, she's gonna have it next next summer. So uh yeah, so if that happens, we're not gonna have a show. Otherwise, we will have a show, uh hopefully. Um so yeah, it's the time though. If you're if you're post striped bass and you want to get on something and you're sick of just doing the drifting for fluke, I gotta tell you find the bait in the back and you're gonna find some weak fish right now.

George Bucci 1:04:58

Like waiting.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 1:05:00

Yeah, and if you're and if you're at the shore, if you're at the beaches and you're busy all day with the family and you just want to get out on the water, find the shadow lines at night, find those currents coming together, get some soft plastics, walk up the bridges, pick up some dock lights.

George Bucci 1:05:16

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 1:05:17

Yeah, that's the way to do it. I might have to do that after work someday, just absolutely. Yeah, yeah. So all right, everybody, thanks for tuning in. We'll be back until next week. Get out there, get on the water, and get some tight lines.