Sheepshead, Flounder, Tautog and Some BIG Blackbelly Rosefish

By Scott Lenox

Posted on August 26th, 2026

It was another beautiful day out there today with light winds, sunny skies and warm temperatures, and now that most kids have gone back to school the bay and ocean are noticeably less crowded.

Captain Nick Sampson of MobSquad Fishing did some deep dropping today and showed his anglers an awesome time with some really big blackbelly rosefish. The current IGFA All Tackle world record is 5 pounds, 3 ounces and Captain Nick said some of these fish could have given that a run for its money. Alas, the charter had someplace to get and they were not officially weighed. Still some great fish!

My buddy Joe Bushnell caught his first ever white marlin today fishing on board the RoShamBo with Captain Willie Zimmerman and crew. Joe also took a proper photo with the fish still in the water before release.

Captain Jason Mumford of Lucky Break Charters continues to tear up the back bay and south jetty putting his anglers on flounder, sheepshead, tautog, stripers, croaker, spot and triggerfish.

Capitan Will Poole of Local Hooker Fishing Charters had a nice trip in the ocean with flounder, sea bass, mahi and two released cobia.

Captain Tony Battista had a fun day of flounder fishing with some young anglers yesterday, and then today it was a meat haul to the ocean with some sea bass, mahi and blueline tilefish.

Captain Monty Hawkins of the Morning Star reported a fun day on the rip today

As fine a summer morning as anyone could ask. Sun broke the horizon clean; ocean had but light westerlies ruffling its surface.

Beautiful.

Learned Sunday I had to get back to work where I first began dropping reef blocks 19 years ago. (See recent vid on FB.) Did just that when my friend Adam and his son, Everett, sent a reef block unit to the bottom.

Though many blocks there are sanded in, that part of the reef holds fish wonderfully regardless. Now we’ll make it better still.

Our first mahi stop this morning was a bust. ‘Twas difficult indeed to find mahi and then get bites all day long. We mostly saw mini mahi – caught some – watched more. Fussy!

We were starting to see better fish last week before surface warmth was mixed with bottom chill 5 days ago. The mix didn’t last long at all – a few hours – but those fish skedaddled when it happened. Now we await refilling as surface temps are again nearing 80 degrees.

With mahi slow I fished reef a bit to try and get dinners around before returning to the hunt. I suppose it paid off as Trey won the pool with a nice sea bass, Steve nearly boxed out on fluke and Mike won a tshirt for largest flounder.

A huge hammerhead surfaced momentarily while reef fishing. Sharks, tuna, king mackerel, bottlenose dolphin – other sea bass (oyyy, ‘conspecifics’ for a vocab check!) – those and many more will dine on a reef’s AYCE sea bass buffet. They’re an important ecosystem component and NOAA should pay closer attention than just ‘turn of the crank’ MRIP management.

We soon fell upon an active pod of spotted bottlenose dolphin. I don’t why, but spotted bnd are always more playful – and these too as they rode the bow wake for some while.

In the hunt for a decent shot of mahi today Adam saw an unusual cluster of storm petrels in a small slick. As sometimes an arbitrary object floating – a drum or some such – can produce an amazing catch of mahi, it’s always worth checking.

Boy, what a show. We found a small dead discard swordfish that had drifted in from the deep. A mako shark of perhaps 7 feet was merrily snacking away on it. The shark had zero concerns about a boat or people watching. It even used the hull to get a better purchase on the swordy. We watched for a few minutes as the mako took bite after bite. Everette wisely used sunglasses over his iPhone lens and got the fantastic footage here.

Hoping for better mahi fishing tomorrow. I think we’ll see 80 degrees again. Won’t automatically restore em; sure should help..

Cheers, �Monty