Article by Larry Jock
Last week saw some good fishing in the bay and offshore. Nice weather kept thing hopping right up until Sunday when bad weather kept almost everyone at the dock.
Joe Morris at Lewes Harbour Marina said that after the new moon, tidal currents started to let up in the Delaware Bay and flounder catches improved. Flatties were reported from Site 5 in the Broadkill Slough and from Reef 8 and the Star Site. On Saturday, anglers on the “Katydid” limited out with 24 flatfish taken while drifting squid and shiners over Delaware Bay structure. Jack Henriksen and Ricky and Todd Mills took advantage of good conditions at the Star Site on Saturday and put together a fine catch of six nice keeper flatties.
Croakers, kingfish and spike trout also hung around Sites 5 and 8. Anchoring right on the piles of rubble produced better sized hardheads than drifting the fringes. Clams, squid strips, bloodworms and Fishbites were favored offerings.
A few larger trout were pulled off lower Bay rockpiles. Frank Kossek caught a 27-inch weakfish by tossing a D.O.A. Terroreyz at the Inner Wall.
Anglers around Roosevelt, and in the Lewes Canal and Broadkill River continued to hook flounder, and increasing numbers of croakers.
Ocean flounder action was decent as well. Captain Brent’s gang aboard the “Katydid” limited out with 24 fluke to 5.5 pounds at Site 11 on Saturday. Wes Grove and his buddies bounced natural bottom inshore of “DB” Buoy on Friday for their dozen fluke limit, including the near citation 6.85 pounder boated by Wes.
Offshore anglers encountered tuna, dolphin and billfish. The best action recently happened inshore of the Poor Man’s Canyon, between the 990 line and the 000’s, from 30 to 50 fathoms. Whales signaled the presence of bait in the area and crews that found whales or bunches of bait early and late in the day usually got bit by yellowfins in the 30 to 50 pound class. Flippy Floppy Things and squid spreader bars were the weapons of choice. Jeff Hoepfl and his crew on the “Joint Venture” trolled up four good yellowfins and two dolphin there on Saturday, but a giant tiger shark clipped off one tuna behind the head before they could get it in the boat. Rick Thompson caught and released a white marlin that attacked a Flippy Floppy Thing towed behind the “Katydid” in that area on Friday. Rick’s gang also returned to the dock with a pair of yellowfins and some mahi. Tyler Freeman, Kevin Rakoski and Bob and Scott Love landed a 63.5 pound yellowfin and four dolphin weighing up to 10.5 pounds while trolling the Baltimore Canyon on Friday.
Canyon deep droppers did well with bottom dwellers last week. Captain Brent’s bottom bouncers put a big batch of blueline and golden tiles, plus rosefish, ling and sea bass in the box at the Wilmington Canyon on Tuesday. Geoff McCloskey and his crew captured a 32 pound golden tilefish among others they got in the Baltimore, along with a nice yellowfin, aboard “Tutta Benne”. Ed Sigda and the boys on “Snow Goose” had a good trip to the Baltimore Canyon on Friday. Mike Fritz released a white marlin during the outing. After trolling, the guys switched to deep dropping and that’s when Bill Fintel muscled in a double header of blueline tiles that nailed bluefish chunks at the bottom. The largest fish tipped the scales to 19.7 pounds, and has been submitted for consideration as a new Delaware State Record for Blueline Tilefish (picture on left).
At the Hook’em & Cook’em Tackle Shop in the Indian River Marina, Capt. Bert Adams said that they saw a little bit of everything, but not a lot of anything in the Indian River Inlet last week where the water temperature was around 74-degrees. A few flounder were caught by anglers drifting minnows and Gulp! artificial baits. Striped bass were caught mainly during the incoming tide by anglers fishing with swim shads, bucktails and sand fleas. Sheepshead were caught from the rocks on both sides of the inlet by anglers soaking sand fleas. A few bluefish were also caught but more croaker are being hooked by anglers fishing by the handicap pier while using Fishbite clam for bait.
In the back bays, the most action Bert has seen has come from bowfishermen targeting sting rays.
The headboats out of the Indian River Marina reported a poor sea bass bite last week but the flounder bite made up for it on several trips. They even had a good croaker bite on the Saturday afternoon trip. Unfortunately, they went back out on Sunday, 6-8 miles offshore, and found no hardheads. Small snapper bluefish were found in good numbers at Fenwick Shoal.
Offshore, the scales at the Indian River Marina saw several bigeye tuna hung last week, led by the “Fish Whistle” who weighed 3 eyeballs on Friday morning after an overnight trip to the bigeye hole in the Washington Canyon. Their bigeyes weighed 161, 196 and 231 lbs. “Boys Toy” also brought in a bigeye on Friday night but had to scoot back to Philly so no weight was recorded.
Friday was a great day for catching yellowfins, mainly in 40-70 fathoms inshore of the Poor Man’s Canyon, but as good as it was, the following day it was extremely slow. Fortunately, the slow tuna fishing on Saturday was offset by excellent mahi fishing and the good news is that we are definitely seeing an increase in the size of the dolphin being caught. On Saturday night, a storm blew through the area and didn’t move out until late in the morning on Sunday, keeping everyone from venturing outside the inlet.
Until next week, tight lines!
