While we were trolling saturday between the pier and the inlet we saw several croaker floating on top. was somebody cleaning out their freezer using them as bait or is it possible their was a school of croaker in Feb? Did anybody else see this ?
Todd

Todd,
You sure those weren't mehaden?? Cut your rockfish open or just look down their throat, they probably look like what was floating.

Dearest Randy,
Give me some credit. They were croaker . I have stuffed thousands of crab pots with both over the years.

...and you looked way too busy saturday !
Todd

Yep, I saw'em Saturday too. Not sure if they were from the area or a net boat working the coast. They looked too fresh to have been frozen.

thanks for the reply. they did look fresh.

I also saw croaker floating on the surface while trolling periodically throughout the day. We snagged several bunker also. I'm not sure where they came from, but they were definitely floating on the surface near the fishing pier about 1 mile off the beach.

-barclay

Last weekend our fish had croaker in thier stomachs...I was shocked but the water temp was upper 40's at the state line.

Caught a 38" fish Saturday. Had about a 10" croaker in it's stomach. Could tell it was a Croaker before I even cut the stomach open. Could have filleted the Croaker!

They were pulling then out of a gill net about a mile off the beach between Dam Neck and Rudee. It was the same story last year!! I do know of a gill netter in Willoughby that has already gotten several pounds of croaker, and rediculous numbers of speckled trout. This I thought was strange.