EP 38: John Skinner Talks Catching Fluke, Striper & Murder Stories

Rich Natoli welcomes saltwater fishing legend John Skinner to discuss fluke and striped bass fishing strategies up and down the East Coast, exploring the nuances of finding keeper-sized fish during a challenging season.

You'll pick up cinder worm hatch strategies, hear the results of a "lights on the water" experiment, and John's encounter with a murderer! 

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Chapters

• 0:08 Finding Bigger Fluke
• 18:54 Show Introduction
• 34:33 Finding Quality Keepers
• 47:36 Understanding Ocean Currents
• 52:24 Night Fishing Techniques
• 53:28 The Murderer on the Beach
• 59:08 Striped Bass Fishing Challenges
• 1:02:05 Tarpon Fishing Excitement

Transcript

John Skinner: 0:00

The only time I'm going to leave fish to find bigger ones is if I'm not even getting close. So our limit is 19 inches. If the fish are all coming up 14, 16 inches, I'm thinking real serious about moving from that.

Rich Natoli: 0:18

Hello and welcome back to the Fat Dad Fishing Show. I'm your host, rich Natoli, and we do this show because nothing says responsible adult like a $400 fishing rod, $700 reel and unpaid taxes. Tonight, I'm really excited about this one because we're going to be joined by John Skinner truly an absolute legend in the fishing community for saltwater all up and down the coast fishing in Florida now too, and we're going to go into look as deep as a dive as we can during a normal conversation about fluke fishing striper. Any questions that you have for those that are on the live stream, make sure you put those in chat. I will do my best to bring them on. This is really about getting as much information out there and getting to know John a little bit more than we do through the videos and everything. So this is the chance to do that. I'm really excited about that. So put any questions, anything that you have, in there and I'll do my best to keep up with it. If you are here for the first time, thank you for checking out the show. Just want to say hey, if you enjoy it, hit the follow, leave a review. It really helps us grow. The podcast helps us to get people to agree to come on as guests as well. So let's hit the sponsors real quick and then we're not going to delay, we'll bring John right on. Sponsors for this show.

Rich Natoli: 1:38

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Rich Natoli: 2:07

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Rich Natoli: 3:03

We're going to dive right in. We're going to bring John onto the screen right now. John, welcome to the stream. Good to see you. Oh, thanks for having me, rich.

Rich Natoli: 3:12

Yeah, I was trying not to be too much of a fanboy in the backstage area before we started. There are certain people that you really want to talk to the, the, the people that watch this and listen to the podcast. Actually, more people listen to the podcast than watch this, a lot more than watch the stream. But the feedback that I get is always when I say who should we bring on? You're literally number one every single time. So it's got to say something about you're doing something, right, right, I hope so. Yeah, yeah, I will say so.

Rich Natoli: 3:46

And fluke fishing is fluke and striped bass are definitely the two most popular topics for this audience, both by the boat offshore, inshore, back bays, surf fishing, all that, and you pretty well cover all of it Ocean fishing all the way, you know, to the surf and to the land base. So I think it'll be a good conversation, okay, all right, so I want to start now. It's not going to be an interview, but I want to start off with a couple of things. First of all, I do want to start with fluke fishing, because that is, I mean, that's what the season is right now. Yes, people are still fishing for striped bass. They're still having some success up and down the coast, some areas better than others, but fluke really takes over at this time of year. How has your season been this year as compared to other seasons? Very, inconsistent.

John Skinner: 4:36

It depends on the body of water, all right. So Peconic Bay, which is, for people who don't know the area there, the water between the South Fork and the North Fork, that area, terrible, horrible, as bad as I've seen it. Long Island Sound pretty good, actually quite good. Not quite to the standards of maybe eight or ten years ago and earlier, but certainly it was better than last year and last year was definitely better than the three previous years. So that was good. The ocean fluking off of montauk, it was a much better june than last year. Now it's gotten very, very inconsistent and a lot of smaller fish and overall the size isn't there. And the size wasn't there last year. I mean last year was tough and this year is, I think, maybe even tougher for size.

John Skinner: 5:28

And by size I mean, look, it used to be, even just a couple of years ago. Every time we'd go out we're going to get at least one seven-pounder. I mean at least If we only got one. Well, you know a friend of mine, four trips in a row he had a double digit. Trips in a row, they had a double digit. You know, I mean that's, that's how good it was.

John Skinner: 5:49

And you know, every year I'd get a few double digits and, and then last year, boy, I probably broke seven pounds, but not by much. And I have one about that size this year and even the like the normal keepers, you know we're getting in the ocean. A lot of the keepers are like 20, 21 inches here, cause, like you, might as well fish in the bay, right, which is that's funny. I say that because tomorrow we're gonna fish in, we're gonna bay fish instead of ocean fish, because the ocean fishing today was perhaps the worst trip I've I've been on ever. Yeah, I mean, I mean, look, when you put 100 miles on the boat and you got four guys and the guys that we had fishing, they clearly knew what they were doing, yeah, despite being from New Jersey and everything and calling the fish flounder. We try, but oh no.

John Skinner: 6:33

So, anyway, you know one keeper, it really truly was perhaps the worst trip I've seen. Now, contrast that with last Wednesday. Anybody who was out there last Wednesday killed them. You know same areas, good conditions, um, so it's. It's been up and down like that. However, the the bay fishing not great, and I'm talking about the South shore base not great, but we're going to bay fish tomorrow now. So, yeah, it's okay. It's been. You know, when I've gone there, it's been pretty good.

Rich Natoli: 7:07

Yeah, it gives you an indication, I mean, when you're choosing the bay over the ocean. It says a lot, right? Well, we should never make.

John Skinner: 7:14

I mean, the decision is usually made based on weather. In fact, we would never even consider going to the bay as opposed to the ocean, except that we put 100 miles on the boat for one keeper today. Are we going to go and run that play again tomorrow? No, no, not when we've been successful and we have a good tide on on the bay. So we're going to do that, yeah yeah, it's funny.

Rich Natoli: 7:36

So we actually have in the chat kai ackerman. So kai and billy ackerman they're driving back from that trip and uh, kai says hello, hasn't in a while.

John Skinner: 7:44

So he wanted to say, hi, yeah, a couple hours yeah.

Rich Natoli: 7:47

And Kai was the one with the keeper is my understanding. So well done, kai. But yeah, I mean it says a lot because it's pretty rare that if, at this time of year especially that you're choosing the bay over the ocean, I mean it's just not standard the way that it has been for the past couple of decades.

John Skinner: 8:08

Right, but on the other hand, we were on the water nine hours today. I mean we probably fished six of that. Four guys in the water. It's torture. I hate to call fishing torture, but my goodness. And we didn't see a fish come up on anybody's boat. It's not like we weren't doing well. We had friends out and they only had two keepers and they they got that pretty late. So yeah, it's, but the the more troublesome thing is that even the last two previous days I was not out but my friend was out. He had charters and small fish. I mean, they had some keepers but they're 20, 21 inches. We used to call Montauk keepers, where those are 24-inch fish, standard five-pound 24-inch fish. That's a Montauk keeper. It's nothing special.

John Skinner: 9:03

Now we're hustling for the net. We see a 24 incher in the water.

Rich Natoli: 9:08

Yeah yeah, and I I have noticed in your videos this year you're measuring a lot more fish. Oh yeah, well, we'd like to go.

John Skinner: 9:15

You didn't used to have to do that, yeah, yeah, that's right, oh, yeah, you just, you just look at them, yeah, yeah, and and we didn't used to catch so many shorts. So my my friend, john houthis, the captain, he said they had between 60 and 70 shorts yesterday, which is ridiculous, yeah.

Rich Natoli: 9:32

Yeah Well, I'm going to be heading out this week, so hopefully I'm not on the 60 or 70 shorts. But here's a question for you. Actually, I was going to ask this, but Carl Ward jumped into the chat and he said well, what's the best way to single out the bigger fluke when you're heading out? What are you specifically looking for in an area? Boy, that's a tough one. Well, let's pretend it wasn't based on today, just, generally speaking, the general answer to that.

John Skinner: 9:58

Okay so the only time I'm going to leave fish to find bigger ones is if I'm not even getting close. So our limit is 19 inches. If the fish are all coming up 14, 16 inches, I'm thinking real serious about moving from that and trying to find something bigger. But if we're coming close, if we're seeing good number 18s in there, I'm going to just adjust the drift. We'll go up a little farther, go to. You know, just adjust the drift. You know, go up a little farther, go back a little more, go to the side, because a lot of times these keepers they're in pockets. We saw that in Shinnecock Bay last week. We, you know three keepers on a short drift. At one point we had the net, two of them at the same time and they were bigger than the fish we'd caught on the previous ocean trip, which is nuts, yeah yeah, it's.

Rich Natoli: 10:49

I'll tell you what I I I have found. I don't know if it's true or not, but I believe that you, they kind of run impacts in certain spots, right. So if one spot is dominated by a small fish, there's no big fish there, because the big fish, the best spots, the big fish are kind of moving the little fish away to the sides, so they kind of congregate together by size, at least in the backwaters. Now I wouldn't necessarily say that's so much true for the ocean, because there's so much more expanse, less condensed areas for them to be in, but I do find that in the backwaters if I'm catching a lot of you know 18 in New Jersey's the keeper size.

Rich Natoli: 11:27

If I'm catching 15s, I'm probably, I'm probably off the spot and I'll just pick up and move right away. I don't, I don't tend to pull a 24 out next to a 15.

John Skinner: 11:37

It just doesn't happen. We do. In fact, two Bay trips ago I had just made the comment I pulled a couple of 10, 12 inches, I mean tiny, and I said, oh my goodness, and we had just like slid over to this. I mean, we're a couple hundred feet away from where we were, but we slid over to this spot and it was a little shallower and I got a couple of 10, 12 inches. I said, oh my goodness, these are small, but let's keep the trip going. And then the next fish was 25 and a half inches, you know, and this is in the bay, six feet of water, you know. So we, we do mix them up, you know, we. It's just that if you know you're on there for some period of time and it's all smalls, then I'm thinking about you know, trying somewhere else. Yeah.

Rich Natoli: 12:18

Right, Right I. I see it's easy for me to move because I'm you know, I'm only talking kayak, so moving for me is maybe a 15 second pedal off to the side of the channel.

John Skinner: 12:29

Right now I fish that same area. I'm laughing because, yeah, you have to think about the penalty to move. I fish the same area in my the old town, the autopilot, and I only I don't run that at 10. I'll run it up to nine and a half just to just cause I do. And uh, you know, it's like three and a half miles an hour. But if you're running into current now, now you're down to two and a half, maybe less. You know you got to really think about what it's going to cost you to make a real move. But yeah, you know, I always seem to do well working that kayak in the bays. I think it makes me thoroughly work an area that I know is good, and by not running all over the place it always seems to pan out for me it's yeah.

Rich Natoli: 13:13

I seem to be a better fluke fisherman in a kayak than when I was in my boat. I think I just got lazy, and I talk about it on here a lot, that we tend to get lazy just because it's an easier drift, or you know, we'll just drift this real quick but we won't re drift it. You know moving over a little bit, but when you're in a kayak and it's going to take you a half an hour to move, you're going to hit that area, You're going to make sure you get every little ridge underneath you every little more thorough.

John Skinner: 13:38

definitely more thorough, yeah.

Rich Natoli: 13:39

Yeah, and, and you, honestly you can, unless you're really good on that trolling motor and you have a boat that performs well. With it, I can hit the little pockets a lot easier than a boat. Can you know? I mean, I can get over it and I can just pedal really lightly. I can you know I can change everything really quick and you don't necessarily have that luxury on a boat.

John Skinner: 14:00

Yeah, I like the autopilot kayak the old town that you know. That thing is just ridiculous. For fluke, no-transcript. You know, hey, a lot of times the fluke are near channels.

Rich Natoli: 14:34

In fact they're almost always channels, and you know, you know, you know how it can be so I'll tell you what I do get jealous when I see as soon as you hook into a nice fish, and I hear the lock. Yeah, because I can't do that with the, with the pedals. You know, I think I'm doing it and then I realized you have too much to think about at that. Yeah, I've drifted 50 yards.

John Skinner: 14:55

Yes, no, that's. And I do the same thing in my boat. You know, I've got my 16 and a half foot aluminum trolling motor and, yeah, same exact thing thing as soon as I hook up beep lock it this way here none of the drift is lost. And yeah, that's a wonderful feature.

Rich Natoli: 15:12

Yeah Well, I have a spot lock on the horizon because of that. I'm just getting so tired of just having to go right back up current and then back up current and you're having a great day, but you spend so much time pedaling back to get to that spot.

John Skinner: 15:27

That's right. That's what I was telling my friend the other day. I said, hey, you know, if I'm going into the current at two and a half miles an hour and I'm drifting back at one, which is about what it is, so you figure out, a third of my trip is spent. Know, spent going up, going back up on the drift.

Rich Natoli: 15:45

So yeah, yeah, and for me it's paddling because I have to paddle it right into the current to keep that speed the whole time.

Rich Natoli: 15:52

Yeah, so yeah, I'm too old for this, john, way too old. Do you have a question from joseph beam down here in south jersey? I've noticed I've caught more and larger flounder on a bucktail with a gulp and no teaser. Do you have any experience with that or do you just stick with the what everyone now calls the skinner rig? I didn't know which is the high, low, oh yeah, the high low idea they called it that.

John Skinner: 16:14

I don't see a downside in a teaser. First of all, I don't think fluke are very sophisticated fish. I I think they're downright stupid at times. In fact, I think it was kai that was telling me today about having fought a fluke to the surface and it got off and he just threw the thing back at him and the fish went and grabbed it again. You know I've got them on video with you know, a hook protector, underwater video, and there's a hook protector and the thing comes out of the fluke's mouth six, seven times and it's attached to a camera and the thing is hitting it over and over. I, just I, I have a hard time believing that having that extra, you know, basically unweighted gulp offering could ever be a negative. And I've done it both ways, by the way, because when we started you bucktailing it, we weren't using a teaser, we were just bucktail and gulp. And then, once we went to a teaser, it seemed like there was no comparison and we never, ever went back Ever yeah.

Rich Natoli: 17:14

I've caught more fish on the teaser than on the regular bucktail. I don't know if I'm doing it wrong, I think that's typically.

John Skinner: 17:20

That's fine if it's like 60-40, you know. But when people tell me and I hear this often all my fish come on the teaser, well, in my reaction is something's wrong with your bucktail and it's probably it's too heavy Cause then it acts like a rock. It doesn't look good. You know, you got to make some adjustment. If you're not catching them on the buck.

Rich Natoli: 17:38

Right, it's just dragging the bottom or something like that, which is which is another thing that when you're jigging so you have this crazy fast jig right that you're just constantly up and down on this I've always wondered are you hitting the bottom or are you pulling it right off the bottom and you're trying to get close to it, hitting the bottom on the downswing? Close to the bottom, not?

John Skinner: 18:01

trying to hit the bottom, you're not pounding the bottom. I mean, obviously I'm dropping to the bottom to make sure I'm there, but then and the underwater video I've got shows it beautifully that the rig is, you know, maybe you know anywhere is from six inches to a foot. Maybe if it's two feet off the bottom, probably I'm gonna feel for bottom again, but it's in that range within the first two feet of bottom and not bouncing on the bottom. Yeah, okay.

Rich Natoli: 18:26

Yeah, we've had a lot of debates on the water about that, and the thing was well, you know, in the videos, the underwater videos, you're not trying to catch those fish, so maybe it's just easier, so you don't get snag.

John Skinner: 18:39

No, no, no, no no, no, no, I've only. It's very. It was very difficult to get underwater video of a bouncing gulp rig. You can't attach the camera to that, because it's going to jerk all over the place. So I had quite a contraption that was able to video the gulp rig and I was fishing. You know, I was trying to catch fluke. So yeah, that's where it is the rig's up off the bottom, for sure, yeah. So yeah, that's where it is the rig's, up off the bottom, for sure, yeah.

John Skinner: 19:04

The only thing I was the hook protector was on that when I would. You know you can. You can drag like a strip bait or something to see what the fluke do with that, but you can't jig it because you're going to mess up the video. And I would have a hook protector on that because I don't really want to catch the fish on that Right. That's where I'd get to see him grab it and come out of its mouth and grab it over and over again.

Rich Natoli: 19:27

Right, well, I'd look at some of those videos. I think, oh my god, if I would just get into fish that size. I would just want to catch it there's a different different areas that you're, that you're trolling for those, then then I'm fishing yeah, well, you know what?

John Skinner: 19:41

it's very, very cool to come home and throw that card in the computer and go holy smokes. You know, look at this yeah.

Rich Natoli: 19:47

Yeah, it's amazing how you know when they're sitting on the bottom. You don't even see them until they pop up behind it, yeah, sometimes.

John Skinner: 19:54

But you know I also saw on the video. I mean I've got a lot of video going back some time. You see instances where they're just swimming too off the bottom. You know they're not all sitting there, but one of my favorite clips is off of Montauk. There's these two rocks that are like a couple feet apart and it looks like, you know, there's nothing but sand between them. And as I go by with the rig, all of a sudden that bottom just rises up and there was a true doormat was just between those two rocks and then comes up on the on the bait. You know, it's just so neat to see that.

Rich Natoli: 20:28

Yeah yeah, you had one underwater video. Where it was, it seemed like it was all doormats. It was amazing to me. I don't know where they were coming from, but it cause usually you see a whole bunch of what looked like maybe 16 to 18s but this looked like there were like 22 pluses, like, oh they were, and they were no those that was I know when.

John Skinner: 20:50

That was so and that was a time I happened to collect video on the clearest long island sound water I have ever fished in. I mean 17 feet of water. I could see my rig on the bottom and that is not as unheard of unheard of. And that happened to be the day, and that was the day I was able to then get the bouncing video rig I'm sorry, the gulp rig in the frame, along with the strip bait at the same time to watch the flu come in and decide which there.

John Skinner: 21:18

there's no decision that bouncing gulp rig just like a magnet. It had no interest in fresh meat, none. Every fish went right at that. You'd have three fluke chasing after that bouncing rig and they would swim right by the fresh meat. That was just unbelievable to see, unbelievable.

Rich Natoli: 21:36

Now, do you think that the gulp has changed at all? Do you think it's becoming less of a? Do you think it's the same?

John Skinner: 21:42

Yeah, yeah, I've actually gotten to meet. Like there's two guys that were involved with that. One is still with Berkeley and I got to spend some time with him. I think it was like last winter and yeah, and I asked him yes, hey, you know people complain, oh, it got softer. He goes. No, he goes. It's like making cookies. You make batches of cookies, cookies. They don't all come out the same. He said some, you know, and he said gulp is the same way. Some batches come out a little softer, some come out a little firmer. He said there's no intention to mess up a good thing. And you know, yeah, so there's really no change.

Rich Natoli: 22:17

yeah, yeah, yeah, because I I I remember that I had some I think there were sand eel gulp that I was using and there were. There were like sticks, they were so hard and I said, well, I must've just been old bait or something which doesn't make sense because the juice dried up or something.

Rich Natoli: 22:33

Yeah, yeah, but it. But it sounds right because there were other people that came on the show that said, no, I actually love those. I was like, well, I'm just going to chalk it up to a bad batch then. So maybe I will go out and get sand eels.

John Skinner: 22:45

Oh well, yeah, I've got sand eels and yeah, they're fine, yeah.

Rich Natoli: 22:51

All right. So here's a question for you. This is from Don Mace. I know, don, and how do you know for certain you're drifting with the current? When you're out in the ocean, because that is always a challenge. When you get into some of these areas Because look, some of the best fluke spots you're going to have a lot of structure, a lot of different currents going different ways. The wind's not going to behave. What are you doing to figure out if you're going with the current?

John Skinner: 23:19

With the current. Okay so and that's a great question that's a problem that we run into Montauk and Block. I call them squirrely currents. You know they're not. It's not like Long Island Sound. You know Long Island Sound is pretty boring. The water goes one way, it goes the other way it goes, you know it goes back and forth. No interesting part of that whatsoever.

John Skinner: 23:37

But like Montauk, you know, in the deeper water you've got the top current moving different from the bottom current and it could have to do with recent winds, lots of things, all right. So the answer is well, you need a trolling motor. So what you do is you spot lock and you spot lock and you drop a rig down. You know the same kind of rig that you're using and then you just look at the angle of the line and you see which way that that rig is being pulled and that is the bottom current, that that rig is being pulled, and that is the bottom current, because the trolling motors take care of the top current for you and keeping the boat steady. And you look to see which way the rig's getting pulled.

John Skinner: 24:12

That becomes your trolling direction. You troll in that direction and oh my goodness, what a difference that can make like a light switch sometimes, because otherwise, you know your baits are going down, you know your rigs are going down, tide down, current backwards, and or, in strange ways, you know, sometimes you set the hook but the you see it, when you get, you snag bottom and instead of bottom pulling away from you, the bottom is going under the boat and it's like, how can this even be? I've got a wind in my face, I snag, and yet the line's going on. You know that's because, yeah, you know, you, you've, you've got to kind of fix that drift with the trolling motor. And yeah, you know, when I first used a trolling motor I thought like here's a device of last resort when it's wind against current or something, and then you get used to using it and you get spoiled because now every drift can be perfect, right, yeah?

Rich Natoli: 25:09

yeah, it's funny. Even in a kayak I end up with that sometimes because I don't have a trolling motor and you'll be fishing and all of a sudden you're like how the hell did I get snagged? It's literally on the other side of the kayak. I was fishing off the right and now it's on the left, but I thought it was like 20 yards in front of me and it's behind.

Rich Natoli: 25:27

So, I wonder why I'm getting snagged and not feeling the bottom right, and then all of a sudden I just pick something up. That is a good question and that's something that. Look, I've never had a boat with a trolling motor on it, so I never was able to do that. And some of the most frustrating days on the water is when you're stuck out there and you don't know what the hell's going on underneath you. You know, you think you're good, and then all of a sudden you realize no, I just spent the last half an hour and I'm not even going the right way and I should have had it in gear or popping it in and out or something like that.

John Skinner: 25:58

Yeah, we had a block Island was like two seasons ago. We were just not having, we were just not doing well and we could tell something wasn't right. So we spot locked, we determined the direction and we went and we were surprised at how it was really running. And so we use the trolling motor to do it the right way. And then I got a 10 pounder and I got an eight pounder, I got 10 and eight and a seven on the same run after we were just starving and all it took was using the trolling motor to go in the correct direction, because you know those currents that block, it's a lot like Montauk. They can be quite strange, especially in the deeper water.

Rich Natoli: 26:38

Yeah, I mean you've got the deep water and just odd well block is a little different because you have like you've got the deep water and just odd structure. Well, block is a little different because you've got a lot of things working in that area. On a macro level, you have the island, Then you have this crazy structure underneath and then you have all of the Long Island Sound and everything letting out all that volume of water, so it kind of swirls. It's kind of similar to if you're a South Jersey guy to down near the Delaware Bay, kind of similar to if you're a south jersey guy to down near the delaware bay. Only my understanding is it's it's it's a lot more dramatic up at block than it is down.

Rich Natoli: 27:11

Well, I haven't been down there so I can't compare, but yeah, no you were never down, you never fished off of cape may, new jersey, for straight bass, yeah, no, no, it's I.

John Skinner: 27:22

I'm not going to travel like that for fish that I have. Have you ever driven from eastern Long Island to New Jersey? It's not a good time. I want to avoid that as much as possible. Bridges and tunnels I've got plenty to do around here without doing that.

Rich Natoli: 27:45

Back in the day, the rips at Cape May was just legendary. Now it's. It's better up in in what, what? What am I thinking? The Bay up North? It's much better up there, but it used to be the rips down South and now the the rips you can catch only a few fish. It used to be just huge fish going through there all the time. Boats sank every year. It was so packed and they were just getting hit by the rips wrong.

Rich Natoli: 28:12

But talk about crazy currents down there, but it's, it's pretty much the Raritan. I don't know why I couldn't say Raritan Bay. It's been way too long since I've been on the Raritan, I guess is the issue. So let's let's talk a little bit about striped bass, because look you, you wrote the book on that too, right, I mean, you're fishing, for some of my favorite videos of yours actually was when you were fishing. I guess you were fishing the sound from shore and you were just picking off the striped bass right from shore. Are you fishing for them at all at this time of year, or are you just kind of moving on?

John Skinner: 28:49

So a slight look of disgust on my face is that if you'd asked me that question two years ago, I would have said no and I would have just been lying to you intentionally so that nobody else did it.

John Skinner: 29:00

Now I'm saying no because there's no fish. And I know there's no fish because a friend of mine continues to work it really hard and and it's it's not happening. And I've tried a couple of times and it's not happening. And and we're, like you know, literally texting back and forth trying to figure out what the hell is going on, because it's, you know, it's not even what I consider background fish. I mean to me, under normal circumstances, if you pick some, some beach on Long Island Sound and you put in some big effort of casting, you know pencils and and, and then fishing eels and and you know, if you put it, you're going to get a stray passing by or something, you're going to get something, and by or something You're going to get something, and that's not even happening. And then even the good spots that we know are good aren't holding fish right now.

Rich Natoli: 29:55

So yeah, yeah, it's been tough. I mean, nobody fishes harder than a land-based striped bass fisherman in the summer, and I have very similar reports from new england as well.

John Skinner: 30:06

Like like reports. Really. The person giving me the report is well known and said don't you know, don't disseminate you know.

Rich Natoli: 30:15

And then gave me numbers of you know his network about how, how bad it it is and yeah, Do you think that's a population thing, or do you think it's just a migration change or habitat change, migration?

John Skinner: 30:30

And the reason I say that is last year. Plum Gut, plum Gut's the water between Orient Point and Plum Island. If you watch my boat videos, it's a lot of fun for me in the spring, early summer, loaded with fish, and the fall is another time where it's a lot of fun for me in the spring, early summer, loaded with fish, and the fall is another time where it's, you know, just a great, great area. There were no bass in the gut last fall. Now that's just really quite unheard of.

John Skinner: 30:55

But you know there were basically no bass in the gut last fall. That's a migration issue.

Rich Natoli: 31:02

Yeah, yeah, I mean because they're still there. I mean you see the pictures, people are still catching the big ones, but they're not catching them where they're used to bingo, you know. I mean that's like, like I just said, the cape may rips are dead. It's still fish there, but not like it used to be, where you could walk across them for miles and you know south jersey, I used to be able to fish John in the back in my boat and just anchor up in a back channel in the side banks and just bail fish so many fish you'd have to take all the rods out of the water. You could wait hours, have a drink, have lunch, hang out with your buddies and then just start two hours later. And it's still as soon as it hits the water. You can't fish two rods, it's just bailing them. Yeah, that doesn't happen anymore, and if it does, people aren't telling me because I can't make it happen again.

John Skinner: 31:48

Yeah, I don't. You know, there's not a lot of secrets out there because they get disseminated pretty quick. Look, no, there's secrets for sure, but it's a lot harder for them to be kept nowadays with all the quick communications and social media and everything else.

Rich Natoli: 32:05

So yeah, yeah, yeah. So if you were fishing for striped bass, let's say in the in the fall, is there, is there? Is there a style that you prefer over any other? Are you going top water? Are you out on a boat? Are you in a kayak? Are you on the shore?

John Skinner: 32:23

I really want to be on the beach. I really do. On the other hand, I do need to get content and Plumgut's a lot of fun. So I'll do that, especially in the spring. In the fall I really, really want to be on the beach, and normally on the North Fork we get good runs in the fall and I've fished the North Fork many, many years.

John Skinner: 32:40

I've fished the North Fork many, many years. I've got it pretty well down, I can tell. I used to tell people at work I'm taking off Wednesday. I knew when those fish were going to be on the beach. Yeah and boy, last year was just terrible. So then I ended up fishing the South Shore, going to where I used to spend a lot more time because we had a sand eel run going on over there.

John Skinner: 33:04

So the question about what I'm going to be using in the case of a sand eel run well, I'm not going to be using topwater very much in that situation. A lot of people throw diamond jigs. I'm going to be throwing a bucktail as much as possible. There are conditions because those sand eel runs. The fishing is very good under very rough conditions and it may be that you need to heave metal to get at them right. There's a lot of situations where it looks like you need metal but a bucktail is going to do you a lot, a lot better. But so that's. You know, that's the one fishery. I hope that shows up again this fall because there were a lot of sand eels in long island sound this year. On the north it's bucktails and pencil poppers for me, okay.

Rich Natoli: 33:48

Now, when you throw a bucktail, are you putting? What type of soft plastic? Are you going back with the gulp?

John Skinner: 33:54

Never For stripers, never gulp. Actually not soft plastic either. It would be the fat cow jig strips. Okay, it used to be pork rind, right, and that went away and then went to the otter tails and the FACOW jig strips. Got really used to being able to just leave those on the hooks and put them back in the bag and hey, they catch just as well as pork rind. And then pork rind has kind of come back, like you can buy it, and I haven't actually bothered to go back to it. That stuff's more convenient, it works just as well.

Rich Natoli: 34:24

Yeah, I mean, if you don't need to, right, absolutely. Yeah, all right, okay, so bucktails man. I haven't been on a Sandeel in a long time. A Sandeel Blitz, those are something. There's something about hooking them a little deeper that I really like.

John Skinner: 34:44

You get that really big takeoff on them. Well, the thing with the Sandeel runs I like is that they they stay around. I mean, if they usually start in the beginning of October for us and then they're going to go like to mid November, I mean you're going to get like some time. You know you're going to get at least a month out of these Sandeel runs. Normally. The problem is they don't happen very often.

John Skinner: 35:10

You know, I can think back like 2014 or it was a 13 was, I think it was 2013. It was a super year. You know, super sand eel run. You know this past year was good and it had bigger fish than normal sand eel run. The other thing is it's not running gun fishing. You know the bunker runs up and down the beach and people chase them. There's no chasing. They set up on these sand eels run structure and you figure out the structure and, yeah, you don't have to move all over the place. In fact, it doesn't make sense to. The other thing is it's a 24-hour fishery. The fishing could be. It's great at night. It could be great during the day. One o'clock in the afternoon could be as good as you know, daybreak. So that's a cool thing.

Rich Natoli: 35:48

So there's a lot of upsides to having a sand eel run for sure Now do you do a lot of like overnight fishing, like I mean like not into the night, but you know, start at nine o'clock at night or 10 o'clock at night when it's so.

John Skinner: 36:01

Here's the problem fishing, I hate to say it has become. Well, I need to get content right. I mean the, the content, the youtube stuff drives everything else the, the books, the online courses, you know rods and right, you name it, right, so there's and and you can only do so much. You know you can't. Oh, the big thing is I can't get content at night because it's dark. I mean, that's really the big problem. It's very hard to get any kind of quality night. It's almost impossible.

John Skinner: 36:36

It basically is impossible because first of all, if, even if you try to, if you try to fish with, with the light, it'll shut those bass right off, even in rough surf. And I I was able to show that back. Oh my god, it's like 10 years ago or so. It was really cool. I did it with I think it was daughters I'm pretty sure it was daughters and I I could get a bite going and I'm banging them with daughters banging and banging them, and I show that. That. You know, I've got my little red light, get the fish in in, unhook it, and then I say, okay, I'm going to light it up and fish, and you put that light on, that's it. And even in rough water, in a bar, white water, boom, that bite is shut right down, done. And then you shut that light off about 20 minutes later, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, you're banging those fish again. So you know you, you can't, you can't.

John Skinner: 37:26

It's very, very hard to get night video and this is you know. So take a day like today. I mean, I'm out fluking all day, I, you know what am I gonna do? Go fishing tonight and and try to get video. I can't use, or you know, just go fishing I. So, yeah, I don't do the night stuff like I used to. I spent decades fishing night and you know I would say, you know, start in the dark, you know, don't even bother until it's dark. Dark I don't mean, you know, just after sunset, I mean hour and a half, two hours after sunset, dark dark.

Rich Natoli: 37:53

Yeah, yeah, to me that's the best fishing, john, I'll tell you this. So my most hated video I ever did was nighttime striped bass along docks, and it was just because it's too dark. I'm like, yeah, because it was like one o'clock in the morning. I get it, you know, but you can still seal it no yeah I got.

Rich Natoli: 38:12

I got the worst comments on that ever. It's still on the channel somewhere but people hated me for that. Like I got hate mail for that, I was like, well, I'm sorry I wasted your time, but the point of it was to show fishing dock lights at night for striped bass. In the fall can really be productive. You should have gotten that out of it at least. But yeah, it's impossible. I won't even attempt any videos at night anymore because the lens is way too short. You just can't capture enough light in there.

John Skinner: 38:40

Yeah, it just doesn't work. Actually, also, you just can't capture enough light in there. Yeah, it just doesn't work. And and actually also the auto, the stabilization on the camera, doesn't work in low light because it needs things to, you know, orient to and right, you don't have that in low light, so the shake is just no good.

Rich Natoli: 38:56

Yeah, yeah all right, but if you, if you had so you stand by today, you would still. If somebody says I just need to get on some striped bass, you'd say start fishing at night, fish in the dark, yeah yeah.

John Skinner: 39:09

This is the best time, yeah.

Rich Natoli: 39:12

Now, do you ever have issues where you run into people you don't want to run into at the dark? I think we talked about this on our show last week. Describe people Drunk people assholes, just people that just are. They just don't want anyone around when they're fishing at night.

John Skinner: 39:28

Yeah, no, that's not an issue for me, although I've got a book chapter in the very first book, season on the Edge, where I describe I was night fishing and I lived on a road that was perpendicular to the shoreline. You walk down the end of the street, you go down a set of stairs and you're on Long Island Sound and there's maybe I don't know 30 homes in the neighborhood or whatever it is, and there's actually a gate, a locked gate, to get through that. And I was down fishing one night and I encountered this guy that just scared me. I mean, he, just he, you know, not that he threatened me, nothing like that.

John Skinner: 40:09

It was just, there was just something about him, the freaking guy was scary, and I never in my life before or after have I ever left the beach, quit fishing because I was worried about something. And I went home and I couldn't figure out. Like how did this guy get down there? So when I got home I shut the lights off and I watched to see. You know, oh my God, he went up the road. He must live in the neighborhood. And so then I asked around, I found out what his name was and about two weeks later I'm eating breakfast and I hear Wading River police have solved a five-year-old homicide with the arrest of that guy and he had killed somebody, decapitated him in his house and buried him.

John Skinner: 40:56

He took a jackhammer, tore up his he was in construction. He tore up his garage floor and buried him under his garage. But he made the mistake of. His girlfriend knew about it and then five years later she got in trouble and said, hey, oh, I know what it was. He hit her or something and he or she hit him or some crazy thing like that. And she said, hey, guess what? And she went to the cops. They dug up the garage and the body was in there and that that was the guy. So pretty good, so I had a pretty good read on this guy. He was a bona fide murderer.

John Skinner: 41:33

And the funniest thing was, a couple of years later my wife and I are walking down the street and here's this young couple pushing a baby stroller and didn't recognize him. And and they recognized me and and and they said, oh, we just moved into the neighborhood and I'm like, oh, really when? Oh, up up the street, like third, third or fourth house in the ranch, I'm thinking oh. I said, oh, that's interesting. I said and he, he told me how much he liked the book and I said, let me ask you something How's your garage floor?

John Skinner: 42:03

And he said it's very uneven, why do you ask? And I said well, you know that that chapter in the book. I said that's your house, that that body was underneath your garage floor. Oh man, when I wrote it in the book I that was the only thing in the book that I didn't do exactly truthfully I actually said that the body was on the next street, over under a guy's patio, but no, it was in my neighborhood and it was in the guy's garage. And then I met the house. So yeah, so there's my story about-.

Rich Natoli: 42:33

Did they still live?

John Skinner: 42:34

there Did they move? I don't know what happened to them there. I think we moved out of that neighborhood not too soon and not too much after that. But so there's my story about scary people.

Rich Natoli: 42:45

Yeah, you never know where they're going to be yeah, I, I haven't really run into anybody that that scared me. I've run into a lot of people that were just overly aggressive about stuff drunk people yeah, no, I don't have any issues.

John Skinner: 43:00

I typically don't see anybody and I don't want to be. I mean, when I'm night fishing, when I was especially hardcore night fishing, you're very unlikely to see me, even if you get close.

Rich Natoli: 43:13

All right, so I got to take a lesson from you. I got to be better about that kind of stuff. I seem to be like a magnet to people when they're leaving the bars and they grab their fishing rods. It seems to be they find me. I need to go to more remote places, yeah.

John Skinner: 43:25

And can keep your light off. Get a. You know I always used a like a pen light with a red lens and you know, something dim. Just keep it, you know, and sparingly use it yeah.

Rich Natoli: 43:40

So before you had mentioned that you had tested out the light on the water, I would have said that that really didn't make that big of a deal. But I mean, it doesn't in the backwaters but because you have dock lights all over the place. But I I I always thought that it was just people going crazy.

John Skinner: 43:55

You know it's like no, you shouldn't get mad because you shine the light, but and it was great because you know, I I was, oh, I know was so normally I wouldn't want to do that kind of a thing because I don't want to be Sean, I don't want to be the guy shining the light on the water Right.

John Skinner: 44:09

So there was at the time there was a break in fire Island, a little West of Smith point, the it was called the breach. It was on fire Island national seashore and you basically couldn't get to the West side of that, not, you basically couldn't get there. So what I would do in the middle of the night is I'd kayak over there from Smith Point Marine. I was like a mile and three quarters going across the bay and you had to be careful about don't get sucked out, the breach and all that, right and uh. But once I got over there I owned it. You know, there was nobody there. So there was no fear that I was going to screw anybody's fishing or anything like that, so I could mess around and the companion light for my GoPro is like super bright. I mean I call it like Shea stadium.

John Skinner: 44:52

I know it's a city field now, but you know lights it up like Shea stadium, and so I was able to do that test. And and when that breach, when that water was ebbing out of the breach and the white water was out there, oh, the fishing was fantastic and you know. So I was able to have time with the fish to you know, hook, some try the light, damn the bite shut off, turn off the light. They come back, try to turn the light on again, and I actually have that video on my channel that you know I go through that whole thing.

Rich Natoli: 45:24

I'm going to go back and find that that's interesting. I honestly thought it was just people that you know. They heard it, so they thought it was true, but nobody really knew if it was just like. You know, when I was little, I remember a guy. I was fishing a bridge for tog and I was sitting in a little rowboat and I was talking to my buddy who was sitting on the other, at the other side of it, and this guy just started yelling at us that we're scaring the fish. And I was like.

John Skinner: 45:55

that's not true.

Rich Natoli: 45:56

We can talk, they're not going to hear us.

John Skinner: 45:57

It's not going to matter.

Rich Natoli: 45:58

Yeah, yeah, and I honestly I thought that the whole thing was just upset. Surf casters.

John Skinner: 46:05

Well, that was just, you know, the light on my GoPro, which was a very good light, but it doesn't compare to headlights on a vehicle, which is where this. You know where the problem comes from, that. You know people sweeping, you know the the water with with their lights. I mean, if you're going to turn your truck around, turn the damn thing around with the lights to the dunes, not not to, not not sweeping them over the water. Yeah.

Rich Natoli: 46:29

Yeah, I've never done that. So I I with all that said, I didn't believe it, but I also didn't do it because I I didn't want to be that guy.

John Skinner: 46:41

You know, plus I, I look, I I kind of knew that it was a thing anyway from fishing Long Island sound, in an area where four wheel drives were allowed and you'd be on a bite and then truck would come down to beach the lights. Now your bite shuts down for 20 minutes and it comes back again.

Rich Natoli: 46:53

Yeah. So that's no good. That's no good. Here's a question. This is a really good question. I don't know if you can answer this or not, but South Jersey yak fishing, cinder worms in the water and the cinder worms spawn for striped bass. I have gone on record by saying it is the toughest striper bite for me. By saying it is the toughest striper bite for me, I've never, ever have luck with cinderworms, unless I have a cinderworm fly, and then still I have almost zero luck with it. Have you ever fished it and have you figured out how to do it? Or am I just oh yeah, all right.

John Skinner: 47:28

So I don't have experience in backwaters, but I have the experience on Long Island Sound beaches, because there's actually actually, uh, cinderworm hatches on the beaches themselves, especially up around high, high slack water. So think about this when you have cinderworms there are in the sound you know you've got these worms out there. There are nocturnal fish, such as eels and things that feed on on those worms and and those are things that stripers feed on. So I'll tell you what my my best approach to fishing cinder worms was to throw live eels, because there were already and I know we had eels from diving. I mean, I would see eels diving, so I know they're there.

John Skinner: 48:18

So, yeah, I would fish, I would live eel, cinder worm hatches and do really well. What would happen is when the current got going, they would kind of wipe out. But when the current was slow around high slack, that was the period where you'd see them and there would be fish popping and, yeah, you throw plugs and teasers and nothing but throw a live eel out there and I can only surmise that the cinderworms were attracting the eels that were already there to come out of their holes and the stripers were smart to that.

Rich Natoli: 48:56

Yeah, okay so that right there, john is gold. I am so happy that that question was asked because I I've never been able to figure that out. You know, 50 years of fishing cinder worms because we had the cinder worm hatches right next to the house and I've never, ever figured it out. I never thought to do that.

John Skinner: 49:16

It was probably by accident.

Rich Natoli: 49:18

That's often how we learn right you get fed up and you try something different. For me, unfortunately, I never tried live eels, or even an eel plastic. Maybe would work too. I've never tried that, man. Well, thank you South Jersey Yak Fishing for that, because that I just learned something right there. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna write that down. All right, let me see, let me scan through for pictures. See, here's one again. Joseph beam needlefish for sand eel bite. Do you use needlefish patterns or anything for sand eel bite?

John Skinner: 49:55

needlefish plugs. Yeah. So I really like the super strikes because they make how's it go now, three different lengths and seven different weights. I want to say that's maybe it's six different weights, it's something like that. But you can really tune them in like you kind of buck. You know, you know you, when you go through bucktails you're using a three core, you use a one. You know you do fine adjustments with the bucktail weight and with the super strike needles you can do the same thing, because you could go all the way to that red eyed seven inch thing that weighs I think it weighs three ounces or you can be down at that. I think it's a six inch. You know, that's the black, the regular black eyed one that I don't know what that weighs, maybe an ounce. So there's a pretty good weight range there.

John Skinner: 50:40

That's a super night plug, but I wouldn't. It's not, that is not a lure. I'm going to be throwing in still water, probably not even backwater, unless there's a lot of current, but on the ocean, beaches where you've got some, some white water around the bars, that's a great, great lure, and and it casts so well. You know, if you've got a nor'easter, you've got, you know, big winds. Yeah, that's just a, you know, a really good lure.

Rich Natoli: 51:19

And I always think of it as a night lure. Daytime, or, let's say, early morning, bites on on that lure as well. Yeah, yeah, now are you changing your approach, for so summer versus fall are using different sizes, or anything like that, or is it? Well, I'm not on the open beach in the middle of summer.

John Skinner: 51:28

You know if I'm gonna, if I'm gonna fish bass in the summer, just looking for that know period around dusk and dawn, I'm going to throw pencils. I'm not throwing a needle fish at that time, but in the fall, when there's sand eels around, it's a great, great lure yeah.

Rich Natoli: 51:45

Yeah, I've gone through quite a few of those. You know what, though? They're also really good. When you had the blues mixing in, oh, had the blues mixing in, oh, there you go, yeah, yeah, you don't end up. They're pretty hardy, pretty hardy lures.

John Skinner: 51:58

Yeah, I'm a huge fan of plastic. I'm sorry about that to the wood guys, but I really like plastic. It's very consistent. They're all the same. They stand up to the bluefish. They don't waterlog, they don't get all chewed, they just go on. Hooks don't chew the bellies. You go on and on and on. The plastic just holds up. Yeah.

Rich Natoli: 52:20

All right, so we're coming up on the hour. I just want to get a couple more in here first. First of all, billy Ackerman says they just made it home safe, so they listed the whole way home.

John Skinner: 52:30

They're lamenting the trip.

Rich Natoli: 52:33

Well, they had a great time anyway, tough. They're home and they're lamenting the trip. Well, they had a great time anyway, tough day. But hey, it's always worth it, especially, you know, as Billy was saying, getting out there with his son.

John Skinner: 52:42

Yeah, he seems like a real good kid. We had good conversations. He's got good plans.

Rich Natoli: 52:47

He's going to be watching all your Florida content because he's going to be fishing while at school. Here's a good one. Let's go back to fluke. What's your favorite setup for ocean fluke as far as the conditions, like time, let's say. I like to put it to people this way when it's this type of question, in the perfect world, if you had to fish one one day of the year without knowing anything else, and you could pick all the conditions the wind, the tide, the moon, the month, the week, whatever what would you do if I said you have to go out and catch your biggest fluke?

John Skinner: 53:20

Oh okay, biggest fluke, that makes it easier, biggest, all right. So then I want to be out on the ocean, I guess, and so let's call it Montauk wind, tide, moon. So here's the thing those bites can happen on any tide. It really gets to be getting those wind conditions right. All right, give me a sunny day, give me a light. Southwest wind, august Moon, moon, august Moon. I don't care as much.

Rich Natoli: 54:01

Maybe I should, but I don't Now. Do you not care more? Because of the salooner type of thing, or because the tide strength you don't think really matters that much when you're fishing the ocean?

John Skinner: 54:14

It matters. But I can't say which which is better, because you know if you have really strong currents that can make it a little tough. But you know, in fluke fishing out in the ocean a lot of times you know a 0.5, 0.7 mile an hour drift is just fine, you know you don't want to be going along at, you know 1.4, 1.5 or higher. So, yeah, let's leave the moon out of it. But August, southwest wind, bright, sunny day, jeez, we catch them on both tides. When, when the fishing is good, I think I have a preference for for incoming, cause I'm thinking about places of montauk where the, where the, the water direction on a, on a light southwest, you're kind of lining up current and wind. So it's a nice, a nice condition, yeah.

Rich Natoli: 55:08

So okay, that's. That's a good answer and I love that you said august yeah the month that's always overlooked for good fluke fishing.

John Skinner: 55:16

Well, it's the ocean now, although we do well in the bay in August as well, because you've got the peanuts are getting bigger, the snappers are there. You've got some high quality baits in August in the backwaters.

Rich Natoli: 55:28

Yeah, one of my favorite things about the backwaters in August is I can now drop the Sabiki rig from the kayak and I can pull up a spot and I can just stick that on a circle hook and just drop that down. So I can actually you know, I mean fish a large spot and uh, or I guess you could. I've seen people use bluefish too. I like using spot and just drop that on the hook and you can get some huge ones and it's funny how small of a fluke you can get on a large bait like that too. It's amazing to me how big their mouths get and how they can eat those huge fish when they're only 17 inches and they're eating these things that are half their size. Interesting, yeah, all right. One more question what's your favorite time of year and species if you're fishing shinnecock?

John Skinner: 56:19

well, it wouldn't be shinnecock specifically, but west hampton beaches in october exactly, for you know the striper run, especially if there's a sand eel run. But yeah, that that's when you, when you've got good surf fishing in those areas. It would be a little west, just slightly west of Shinnecock.

Rich Natoli: 56:42

Close enough, right Close enough. If they're fishing Shinnecock, they can make that move.

John Skinner: 56:50

Last half of October.

Rich Natoli: 56:54

When does the run really start there and really get going?

John Skinner: 56:57

Early, early October. You know it depends on the weather. You know if you get a more Easter you get. You know you get some storms that the weather's definitely going to dictate it. I got to tell you years ago, when there were good mullet runs and I don't mean just having mullet but I mean having striped bass on mullet having striped bass on mullet, if you got a good hard northeast blow any time after September 15th, ooh, that could set up some good fishing.

Rich Natoli: 57:22

Yeah, yeah.

John Skinner: 57:24

I just don't see that much anymore.

Rich Natoli: 57:26

No, but it does go longer, though. The season does go longer as far as I'm concerned. The fall run, remember they used used to start. New Jersey was always, you know, the end of September, and then it became the week before Halloween, then became Halloween, and then became two weeks after Halloween and now you're fishing up in the backwaters.

Rich Natoli: 57:45

You're fishing for them all the way up until they close it on December 31st. You know, and you're still catching. You know, there there are guys. There are guys that they wait all year for it and they fish so much that these guys never should I mean, that's all that they're focused on and they get exhausted and they're like but we still have two weeks left and I keep going, I can't believe I have to keep going, I'm not going again.

Rich Natoli: 58:09

And then they're going again that night at 2 am, because they heard the the bite 20 miles up the beach and now they they're heading up there. Yeah well, it's a long winter when you're up here.

John Skinner: 58:19

your winter in South Jersey is certainly shorter than here, but I can tell you our winter is a solid five months up here.

Rich Natoli: 58:29

And you're going to be down fishing for the tarpon again and everything.

John Skinner: 58:32

Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely, yeah, absolutely absolutely I'm looking forward to looking at those.

Rich Natoli: 58:37

So I'm like everybody else up here, you, you got to find the people that you can follow that are also going to be fishing when we're not. You know, when I'm just sitting in there, you know, putting new braid on every reel just because I have nothing else to do, and then I can watch somebody. I mean, some of your Tarpon videos were amazing when you first got that autopilot. There was one video that I recall that you I mean you were just slamming them and it seemed like you might have been a little surprised at just how well you were doing.

John Skinner: 59:09

Well, I can tell you every single Tarpon hit is a surprise yeah every single one.

John Skinner: 59:19

I mean because it's so I I throw one lure, it's the five inch zoom fluke, five and a half inch, whatever it is. Eighth ounce swim bait hook, kamikatsu, 4-0, and just you know, an er motion and they're a very hard fish to get to hit. Yeah, and if I'm in the presence of them, where I see some rising, I really have it. I really have full confidence that I put in some time I'm going to get one of those things to hit. But when the hit does come, there's never I'm never anticipating the hit, it's just you're, you're working at it, you're working out, I'm determined.

John Skinner: 59:58

I know if I put my time in I'm gonna hook one of those damn things, right, and but when it happens, it's just just mayhem because within seconds that thing is in the air. I mean, when you've got a six foot fish, and that's not an exaggeration. Some of them are that big, jumping four or five feet up in the air, and that's not an exaggeration. Some of them are that big, jumping four or five feet up in the air, and that's not an exaggeration either. They do that and you're in, you're sitting in your kayak and five seconds ago you know you'd been out for three hours. At that point you haven't had a touch. The next thing you know, you've got that thing in the air. I mean that's oh, it's nothing like it, yeah, it's great, it's mayhem.

Rich Natoli: 1:00:35

Yeah, those are some of my favorite videos of yours.

John Skinner: 1:00:42

And you can tell. That's where you'll see me get the most excited. You can see I'm getting excited now, right, yeah, that's when I get the most excited is.

Rich Natoli: 1:00:49

I'm looking forward to those. Yeah, I'm looking forward to those. You know that's a species I've never been able to target. It's one that I definitely want to target. You know that bonefish and you know some of these Florida things, but I, I just I just think it's awesome. Every time I watch a good tarpon video, I'm amazed. I'm amazed, you know. Bow to the King. Oh yeah, you better, because those things go crazy when they're when they're out of that water.

John Skinner: 1:01:14

Yeah, so actually I don't bow. By the way, I noticed you don't.

Rich Natoli: 1:01:17

I don't.

John Skinner: 1:01:19

And I survived. I don't know how many fish. That was probably over six or seven fish. Anyway, I survived over 40 jumps in a row, when you consider one after another. I mean, I lose them other ways. Maybe the hook pulled, or they broke me off on a bridge, or God knows they broke me off on a bridge, or God knows, you know, they broke the leader. There's a good, you know good way to lose them.

John Skinner: 1:01:37

But as far as the actual jumps and throwing the hook, I survived over 40 jumps in a row across several trips and and I don't bow, I'm not going to bow, no, I mean not because that those, those percentages are very good, very good, and a lot of it comes down to the fact that I'm using a swimbait hook and not a jig head, because a jig head, all that weight is forward. They get that when they go up in the air, they get that leverage and they shake that thing. That's when they can throw it. But with a swimbait hook, you know, then the weight is distributed more evenly and they don't throw a swim bait hook as easily as they do a jig head.

Rich Natoli: 1:02:16

Oh, that's interesting. Never thought about that. I thought about the leverage with a lot of other situations, but I haven't thought about it for that. Yeah, I love that.

John Skinner: 1:02:25

It's a very light payload. I mean, if you consider the, the, the jerk shad and the swim bait hook, probably in totals one quarter of an ounce, yeah, which is why I'm throwing fairly light tackle. You know the people down there, they're all these bait guys and you know fish heavy gear with chunks of mullet. I'm not a chunker, you know, I don't bait fish and I'm not going to. You can't throw a quarter ounce payload on a heavy outfit with 50 pound test line. No.

John Skinner: 1:02:56

I have gotten it to the point where, all right, I can fish 30 and I can fish a 50 liter, but I've caught quite a few of them on 20 with a 40 liter. But I tried to beef it up a little this year and go 30 pound, mainline 50 liter, but yeah there, that's like a good balance. I mean 30, yeah, 30,.

Rich Natoli: 1:03:13

You're still going to be able to get it out there.

John Skinner: 1:03:16

Yeah, you, you will. But again on that, on that light lure, are you killing the action with the 50, you know, with the 50 liter, you know.

John Skinner: 1:03:25

I think the answer yeah, it might be a little bit. I've hooked. I hooked enough of them this past season with that setup to think that I'm probably probably okay. I got to tell you my landing percentage, though with the 20 and the 40 is better than with the 30 and the 50. For whatever reason, they seem to have gone through that 50, you know, chafed through the 50. Probably, I don't know, maybe because it's more, I don't know more tension on it. I don't know.

Rich Natoli: 1:03:49

Are you using mono?

John Skinner: 1:03:50

or fluoro. Fluoro Seag cigar blue. Or cigar inshore actually.

Rich Natoli: 1:03:55

Try the mono Apparently. It actually is better at increasing resistance.

John Skinner: 1:04:00

I don't believe that I don't buy it. I know exactly what you're talking about. I don't buy it Too many decades on those jetties with big striped bass and I use both because I really like tri-lean big game for uh, for leader material for striped bass and green actually like if I'm casting striped bass in long island sound, the green is that that green tri-lean next uh big game is very good, but on the rocks, in the jetty rocks, I found that the fluoro really did a lot better of holding up to, you know, dealing with fish in the rocks. So yeah, nobody's going to shake me from from that belief, um, yeah well, I mean, you have the experience, you know it works for you yeah, no, yeah, I mean there's no reason to change if it's working right, unless you're unhappy with your current results.

Rich Natoli: 1:04:53

And if you are, I just want to be you for a day, because I would be ecstatic with them. So yeah, John, thank you for coming on. I really appreciate it. As I had mentioned, you are by far the most requested guest and it was great to sit down and talk to you and just hear a little bit about it and hear about the neighbor that murdered someone.

Rich Natoli: 1:05:15

Oh man, hopefully they disclosed that when they sold that house, but I guess they didn't. Those people were pretty surprised I think you're supposed to disclose I think you that's right.

John Skinner: 1:05:27

You're a real estate guy.

Rich Natoli: 1:05:28

You would know about that yeah, I think that qualifies as something that you have to disclose. But yeah, uneven garage, all right. Well, at least your spidey sense has kicked in and you got off that beach that day. Thank you again for coming on. I appreciate it. Everybody in the chat thanks for tuning in. Everyone that's joining after on the podcast, I appreciate it.

Rich Natoli: 1:05:50

Remember, if you found this at all entertaining, any good information that you got. It would be great if you just kind of leave a thumbs up, a like, a follow on the podcast. It really helps us to reach more people and, honestly, a lot of now. John didn't do this, but a lot of guests say well, how many people watch and listen, because if it's not enough, I'm not coming on. I won't mention names of people that have done that, but it's actually some of the smaller guys do that, but it does help us to get more guests on. So do that if you could, and despite the heat, everybody, I'm going to be getting out on the water this week, so hopefully you do too. So until next week, until the next episode, get out there, get on the waters and get some tight lines.