Article by Larry Jock
Well, last week was a complete blowout! Bad weather lasted the entire week with only a couple of windows of opportunity to hit the water.
At Hook’em & Cook’em in the Indian River Marina, Capt. Bert Adams said that his headboats were able to get offshore on Thursday and Sunday last week. Fishing was very slow on Thursday but the bite was much better when they ventured back out on Sunday morning, even though Capt. Chris Adams reported dirty water conditions. His anglers caught a few keeper flounder and sea bass but anglers stayed busy with a lot of throwbacks.
Before heading 10 miles off the beach, Capt. Chris did swing by Site 10 where they marked fish but just couldn’t get them to bite. They even switched to smaller hooks, but with no luck.
Nothing is really happening in the Indian River Inlet, which isn’t anything new this season. For some reason, the Inlet just hasn’t been producing like it has in previous years. As expected after all of the storms, water quality is poor but Bert said there are plenty of peanut bunker and 7 to 8-inch finger mullet around, so you would expect to see decent numbers of fish looking for a snack. Uunfortunately that’s not the case. Bert said he sees an occasional flounder and some sheepshead have been caught along the rocks on the south side of the Inlet by anglers soaking sand fleas. Tog season in Delaware is closed right now.
With storms wreaking havoc on ocean waters, not many broke the Indian River Inlet last week. On Thursday, a couple tried the inshore lumps, like Fenwick Shoal, but did not find any of the snapper bluefish that had been hanging around. On Saturday, Bert said that “Boys Toy” took on rough seas heading to the Baltimore Canyon and released a white marlin in addition to catching a dolphin.
Capt. Mike Behney at Rick’s Bait & Tackle said that his customers found a lot of good size spot in the Indian River Bay where they are also picking at a few flounder.
Not much is happening in the Lewes Canal, but Mike had some anglers get into smaller weakfish, up to 15-inches, while fishing in the Canal near the Roosevelt Inlet. Mike said that there are also a few croaker being caught in the Lewes Canal by anglers using Fishbite bloodworms for bait.
Not much happened at The Walls last week due to rough conditions.
Those that were able to fish from the beach last week found a lot of small snapper bluefish at the Delaware Seashore State Park and at Cape Henlopen State Park. Cut mullet is the recent bait of choice.
On a side note, NOAA clarified their change in cobia regulations, and although they put new size and creel limits in effect, they are not opening Federal waters to cobia fishing until January 1, 2018. You can read about it on page 15 in this issue.
I also heard a rumor that the Paradise Grill Flounder Pounder Open is considering going to a fish 3 out of 5 day format with first place worth $150,000. I haven’t confirmed this rumor, but I got it from a good source. I will keep you all updated once I get it verified. Looks like they are looking to become the White Marlin Open of the flounder world. Could be interesting.
As this report is being written on Monday morning, the weather has improved greatly, so there are a lot of boats on the water. Hopefully, the storms have shaken things up offshore and the tuna and marlin bite will improve. Keep an eye on our online fishing reports for daily updates.
Until next week, tight lines!
