Article by Larry Jock
This Week Last Year
•Nasty weekend with high winds kept boats at the dock.
•Before the blow, a lot of bluefish were caught in the Indian River Inlet.
•Decent size spot and black drum were caught in the back bays.
•Bluefish, pompano and kingfish were caught in the surf.
•Cobia still being caught off the coast.
•Bluefish and mackerel on inshore lumps.
•Triggerfish, sheepshead and small black drum at The Walls.
•Flounder bite in 60-80 feet of water slowed down. Better bites further offshore.
•All the croakers you wanted in 60-feet of water.
•Good white and blue marlin bite in the Poor Man’s Canyon.
Unfortunately, there isn’t much to report this week. The effects of Hurricane Dorian were felt late Wednesday into Friday, keeping everyone at the dock. Some reports had us getting up to 60 mile per hour gusts, but luckily it didn’t come anywhere close to that.
At Rick’s Bait & Tackle in Long Neck, DE, Capt. Mike Behney reported that some of his customers headed to the DelJerseyLand reef and found good sea bass fishing with knotheads weighing up to 3 1/2 lbs. Clams and squid were the baits of choice.
Flounder fishing on ocean bottom is definitely on the upswing and it appears that the flatties are stacking up in the bay and inlets preparing for their eastward migration. Mike reported seeing good flounder fishing after the blow on Sunday with several of his customers returning with limits of flounder from locations around the Old Grounds. Those who didn’t want to venture outside the Inlet found flounder in Massey’s Ditch and in the Indian River Inlet.
Mike said that a lot of anglers had great results catching dolphin over the weekend, especially around the inshore pots only 20 miles off the beach. No monsters, but not peanut size either.
In the surf, bluefish are dominating the action with surfcasters also tying up with kingfish as well.
Capt. Bert at Hook’em & Cook’em didn’t see much action at the Indian River Marina until Sunday and the flounder bite in the Indian River Inlet was as solid as its been this year with good numbers of fish being caught and some really nice flatties in the mix. Brittany Lee of Ocean View led the way with a 24-inch, 6 pounder caught on a Bass Assassin on the north side of the Inlet. Bert said that there were a lot of 3 to 5 pounders caught at the normal hot spots in the Inlet. Like reports coming out of Ocean City, there’s a lot of mullet in the Indian River Inlet right now. Ocean City anglers seemed to feel that it made it tough to flounder fish over the weekend, but it didn’t seem to hurt IRI anglers.
In addition to the flounder bite, there were some bluefish and short stripers caught on artificials in the Indian River Inlet over the weekend. Unfortunately, still no croakers, although hardhead action seems to have picked up dramatically at sites around the Delaware Bay. There were also reports of big kingfish in the Bay as well.
Speaking of the Delaware Bay, before the blow, sheepshead action around The Walls was outstanding. You can see all the pictures in this issue and there are still some that I didn’t have room for. They were nice size fish with several over 10 lbs.
Headboats out of Indian River found some flounder 8 miles off the beach and also got into sea bass, bluefish, croakers and triggerfish. Bert said they had some nice size flounder on Sunday and even lost one at the boat that was estimated at 7 lbs.
Offshore, Sunday was crazy and Bert was cleaning fish until after 9:00 at night due to all the dolphin that were coming in. Anglers caught them on cut bait and while trolling below the Baltimore and into the Poor Man’s with fish from 3 lbs. up to 18 lbs. hitting the cleaning table. Bert also saw 2 yellowfins come in that weighed 73 and 78 lbs. in addition to a pair of swordfish weighing 59 and 81 lbs. that he thought were caught in the Baltimore Canyon.
Commercial longliners got into some allison yellowfin tuna and bigeyes deep outside the canyons last week.
Until next week, have fun and tight lines!
