Article by Larry Jock
It’s always nice when there is a flurry of fishing action towards the end of the season. It provides anglers with hope that the season may be extended with nice weather and good bites.
Capt. Mike Behney at Rick’s Bait & Tackle said anglers are still pecking away at flounder and croakers in the Lewes?Canal, but most of his customers are having better luck fishing for flounder on ocean wrecks and reefs. Spots around the Old Grounds are still producing good catches of flatties for anglers dropping bucktails tipped with strip baits or minnows. Mike said that minnows were especially productive last week. Mike also reported that some of his customers continue to have fun catching short stripers under the lights at the Coast Guard Station at the Indian River Inlet. The Walls in the Delaware bay are still holding triggerfish but Mike said that anglers are now finding a few sheepshead interested in their offerings of sand fleas.
The most interesting news of the week was a report that came in from anglers fishing out at Fenwick Shoal. Unfortunately, federal waters are closed to cobia fishing because the guys said that they spotted around 40 cobia cruising the surface in 4 separate schools. And the fish were big! Hopefully, they will work their way inside because I know of a lot of anglers who are itching to tangle with the “man in the brown suit”.
At Fenwick Bait & Tackle, Matt Shoup reported that there are a ton of small bluefish in the surf right now. Most are in the 10-inch range and surfcasters are hooking them on cut finger mullet. Some of his customers also hooked into a few short striped bass in the 18 to 20-inch range. Adding to the action in the surf, Matt said that there are a lot of 2 to 4-foot sandbar sharks being caught throughout the day in the suds.
Matt and some buddies ventured out to the African Queen last week and found a load of small sea bass, short flounder and larger 16-inch bluefish on the bottom.
Capt. Bert Adams said that the highlight of the week was the 93.4 lb. wahoo caught last Friday by angler Heath Berger on the “Stress-Reel-ief. The number of big wahoo we have seen this year has been amazing and Heath’s is the heaviest weighed this season in both Delaware and Ocean City. Like all the wahoos that came in over the weekend, the fish was caught on the troll in 75 fathoms between the Baltimore and Poor Man’s Canyons. I also noticed that quite a few this season were caught on ballyhoo dressed up with Joe Shute lures. Heath’s fish bit on a black and purple one.
Bert said that fishing in the Indian River Inlet is still slow with anglers finding mostly small bluefish hitting anything shiny during the incoming tide.
These fish are in the 5 to 10-inch range, but Bert said that one day they did see larger 12 to 14-inch snappers show up. Anglers are also hooking into some tautog while fishing from the jetty rocks, but tog season in Delaware doesn’t open until September 29th. Bert also said that the surf around Indian River are loaded with small bluefish, but croakers are non-existent.
Headboats out of Indian River are still getting into sea bass and flounder on ocean reefs and wrecks but anglers are needing to weed through a lot of short fish to catch their keepers. Those fishing on the “Capt. Bob II” over the weekend also found good numbers of croaker.
Since this is the last report of the Coastal Fisherman season, I would like to especially thank Bert Adams at Hook’em &?Cook’em, Mike Behney at Rick’s Bait & Tackle and Matt Shoup at Fenwick Tackle for taking the time each week and providing information for this report.
The next issue of the Coastal Fisherman will come out on January 1st, so until then I wish everyone a wonderful fall season and hope to see many of you out on the water.
