Sea Bass Summer 2026

Sea Bass Slammin' Off Sandy Hook | Buona Vita Adventures What's going on, everybody! Captain Rob here, back at it again with another episode of Buona Vita Adventures, and let me tell you — today's trip was an absolute beauty. We pointed the bow north and ran out to the structure off Sandy Hook, New Jersey, chasing one of my favorite eating fish in the whole Atlantic: the black sea bass. If you've never tangled with these little tanks, you are in for a treat, because pound for pound they pull hard, they bite all day, and they fillet out into some of the sweetest, whitest, flakiest meat you'll ever drop in a fryer. So grab a cup of coffee, settle in, and let's get into it. First, a little bit about the star of the show. The black sea bass — Centropristis striata if you want to get fancy at the dock — is a bottom-dweller through and through. These fish love structure. We're talking wrecks, reef sites, rock piles, rubble, anything down there that gives bait a place to hide and gives the bass a place to ambush it. The older, bigger males get that gnarly bluish hump on the forehead, and the salty guys around here call 'em "knotty heads." When you find a good piece of bottom holding sea bass, it's not a one-and-done deal — you can sit on a number and pick away at 'em fish after fish after fish, and that's exactly the kind of action you're gonna see today. Now let's talk bait, because this is where a lot of folks go wrong. Sea bass aren't picky, but they do have favorites. Our go-to today was fresh clam and squid on a simple hi-lo bottom rig — two hooks, a sinker on the bottom, drop it down, let it tap the structure, and hang on. We also brought along some Gulp! baits and a couple of jigs for when the bite got picky or when we wanted to pick off the bigger biddies hanging just off the wreck. Clam strips, squid strips, a chunk of fresh cut bait — keep it simple, keep it fresh, and these fish will eat it up. And as always, mind your local regs and your size and bag limits, because we keep this channel legal and we keep it clean. We made the run today on my pride and joy, the Cobia 301 CC with twin Yamaha F300s hanging off the back. That rig gets us offshore quick, rides like a dream in a Jersey chop, and gives us all the deck space we need to fight fish and film it for you. And speaking of the run out — man, what a morning. We passed pod after pod of dolphins on the way to the grounds, big bottlenose rolling through the swells right alongside the boat. Never gets old. The crew was hanging over the rail like a bunch of kids, and honestly, that's half the reason we do this. And what a crew it was. We had Deckhand Dan working the cooler and keeping the baits flying — that man does not stop moving. Fish Slayer Chris lived up to the name today, because the second his rig hit the bottom he was bent over with a keeper, and he did NOT let us forget about it. Surfer Nick rounded us out, bringing the good vibes and somehow staying soaked the entire trip, which, if you know Nick, is just kind of his thing. Add in yours truly, Captain Rob, and you've got the whole Buona Vita family out on the water doing what we love. We put a beautiful box of sea bass together today — keepers stacked up, a couple of real knotty-head studs in the mix — and I'm gonna walk you through every drop, every bite, and a couple of the tricks that put extra fish in the cooler. Stick around for the catch-and-cook at the end, too, because there's nothing better than eating fresh. Oh, and I gotta tell you about what happened when we pulled back into the marina, because you can't make this stuff up. We're idling up to the dock, tired and happy, and the boat over on the neighboring dock comes off the lift and goes straight into the drink. Just — splash — right off the lift and into the water. Now I'm not gonna name names, but folks, that is a sign of a poor captain. Take your time, know your boat, respect the water. We'll get into all of it. So do me a favor — smash that like button, hit subscribe, ring the bell, and let's go catch some sea bass off Sandy Hook. Let's go!