Article by Larry Jock
Mother Nature finally cut us a break with some excellent weather all over Delmarva last week allowing anglers to hit the water in search of their favorite inshore or offshore species.
Capt. Bruce McGuigan at Capt. Mac’s High Performance Tackle on Rt. 54 in Fenwick reported a good bite for anglers fishing from the bridge or by boat in The Ditch. Good numbers of black drum, in the 8 to 10 lb. range, were caught and even a few speckled trout fell for hooks baited with peeler crab in addition to Gulp! artificial baits and MirrOLures.
The Indian River Inlet produced mixed results. Anglers fishing off the rocks captured weakfish, striped bass and bluefish. The weakies were caught on bucktails tipped with peeler crabs with most in the 3 1/2 to 4 lb. range. Stripers were fooled by live bait and Storm shads.
Flounder fishing continues to be slow in the Inlet and back bays. Water quality seems to be the main problem. All of the rain we have had has created murky conditions.
In the surf, it looks like we are in full summer mode with panfish dominating the action. Spot, kingfish, croaker and weakfish are filling coolers during the day and surfcasters fishing at night are still landing sharks, rays, croakers and a few stripers in the 18 to 22-inch range.
Capt. Bruce asked me to mention to our readers that his son, Matt McGuigan is organizing a summer long tournament to benefit the St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. The tournament will run from July 1st to Labor Day for anglers who want to target flounder, striped bass, bluefish and tautog. Registration is only $5.00 for anglers 12 and under and $10 for everyone else. Anglers can register right at Capt. Mac’s on Rt. 54 in Fenwick Island. Hats off to Matt for organizing the tournament for such a great cause!!
Joe Morris at Lewes Harbour Marina said offshore action was good. Boaters trolling the edge between the Wilmington and Poor Man’s Canyons told of whales, porpoises, birds and other signs of life signaling the presence of tuna. Pulling skirted ballyhoo and squid spreader bars resulted in bites from yellowfins of varying size. A lot of the fish kept were BLTs, but plenty of 40 to 70 pounders spiced up the mix.
Some crews battled bigeyes as well. Geoff McCloskey, Phil Falgowski, Josh Loose and Mark Spence trolled in the Wilmington Canyon on Saturday for their limit of 12 yellowfins weighing up to 69 pounds, plus a nice mahi. The guys also released 16 other tuna during their trip. The “Katydid” worked the Baltimore Canyon on Saturday, where they put 6 tuna, weighing up to 40 pounds, in the box. They capped off the trip with some deep dropping and added 35 gray and golden tiles to the take.
Some boats overnighted in the canyons. Ed Sigda and his crew aboard the “Snow Goose” laid over in the Baltimore on Friday night where they tangled with sharks during the darkness. They released a big scalloped hammerhead, an oversized blue shark and six large duskies as well. The guys also trolled up 5 keeper yellowfins to 58 pounds and released 4 others on the East Wall.
Back inshore, ocean bottom bouncers continued to pull quality sea bass and ling from the Del-Jersey-Land Site. Gladdy Dcruz decked a 4.16 pound citation knothead at the Site aboard the “Martha Marie”. Crews drifting or anchoring at Site 11 found sea bass too, but most were below the 12.5-inch minimum. Captain Brent Wiest drifted Site 11 on Thursday aboard the “Katydid”, where Bob Kauffman and his group iced 18 keeper flounder weighing up to 4.9 pounds. Brent returned to Site 11 on Friday for 8 more good sized keepers, including a 6.33 pounder he hooked himself.
The Old Grounds, southeast of DB Buoy gave up some fluke early in the week. Mike Newsham and his crew on the “Local Girl” pulled 10 keeper flatties from the 80 foot depths there on Monday. Captain Ricky Yakimowicz has been fishing that area too, and said there are schools of small mackerel all over the place. He’s been dropping sabiki rigs whenever he sees them on the finder to catch the little scombridae for bait. The fresh, miniature macks are deadly candy to fluke and other gamefish too.
Delaware Bay structure is yielding flatfish too. Captain Brent’s flukers aboard the “Katydid” scored 20 keepers weighing up to 3.6 pounds at Site 5 on Wednesday.
Flounder keep coming from the Lewes Canal where Mike Dmiterchik used a minnow to tempt a 4.2 pound flattie. Eileen and Gary Smith had success with 6-inch white Gulp! Mullets when they scored keepers of 18, 19, 20 and 22-inches in the Canal on Saturday. The following day, Eileen used a speck rig tipped with Gulp! to get a 4.57 pounder.
Croakers and spot remain plentiful in the Roosevelt, Broadkill River, along Lewes and Broadkill Beaches, around the Cape Henlopen Pier and on Bay structure. The northwest corner of the Star Site, the live bottom of The Shears, Site 5 and the Coral Beds held decent sized hardheads along with puffers and numerous kingfish. Bloodworms, Fishbites and clams were favored eats for panfish. Trout were mixed in among the other species.
Nice sized weakfish came from the Ferry Jetty. Butch Emmert told of trout weighing up to 4 pounds along the rocks at first light. He said paddletail soft plastics tipped with a bit of peeler were the key.
June is spawning time for big sandbar sharks in the Delaware Bay, and anglers fishing the reef sites have caught many small browns that were likely just pupped. Numerous brown sharks from 20 to 50 pounds were roaming the area around the submerged pilings between the Coral Beds and Fowler Beach. Remember that sandbar and sand tiger sharks are protected and may not be retained at any size.
Stripers were active in the Lewes Canal. Legal size bass were caught around the drawbridge using live eels or clams. Rockfish also fell for Rat-L-Traps, topwater poppers and Storm Shads. The striped bass slot limit goes into effect on July 1st, allowing anglers 2 fish between 20 and 26-inches per day from the Delaware Bay and its tributaries until August 31st.
Until next week, tight lines.
