The first week of July was more heat than fish — but the club's River Fluke Tournament made the papers, the canal gave up some shorts, and one member pulled a crab worthy of a nickname.
July 2 — The Coast Star ran Jim Freda's write-up of the club's annual River Fluke Tournament: twenty-plus members across seven boats fished the Manasquan River on a drizzly day, and new club member Scott Crosson took top honors with a 19.5-inch, 2.36-pound fluke on a spearing-and-squid combo just west of the canal entrance. Joe Mariano was second with a 19.5-incher at 2.33 pounds, and Frank Richetti third at 18.5 inches, 2.20 pounds. The anglers also tagged and released 11 fluke for the American Littoral Society. Same day on the water: Fred T was up by the canal catching shorts before the heat chased him off — and he missed the day's real spectacle by 15 minutes, when the railroad bridge got stuck in the down position from the heat and a flotilla of stranded boats had to anchor up and wait. Luis C and Morrow played it smart, tying up at the shrimp box and knocking back a few until the bridge finally opened around 8 PM.
July 4 — Frank C put the club's crab seminar to immediate use, decking a jimmy blue crab big enough that Fred T dubbed it "Crabasaurus." Officially 100 degrees at Point Pleasant Beach that afternoon.
July 5 — Sean W checked in from the Axel Carlson: really slow, nobody else reporting. Some weeks it's the heat, not the fish.