Article by Larry Jock
There’s not a whole lot to report right now with most bay and inshore anglers fishing in the Paradise Grill Flounder Tournament and offshore fishermen finding a slow marlin and tuna bite made worse by bad weather.
As mentioned previously, the Paradise Grill Flounder Tournament was a 5-day event this year, starting on Wednesday and ending on Sunday. This year, 300 boats were entered in the tournament. As this report was being written on Monday morning, their website was not updated for “official” final results, but here is how it ended:
1st Place - $100,000
Boat - Yahoo’s
Angler - Pete Hesson
Weight - 9.8 lbs.
Caught on Day #4 (Sat)
2nd Place - $50,000
Boat - Stalker
Angler - Mike Frank
Weight - 8.5 lbs.
Caught on Day #2 (Thurs)
3rd Place - $25,000
Boat - Sea Hawg
Angler - Paul Zarebicki
Weight - 8.4 lbs.
Caught on Day #1 (Wed)
It was surprising to see a winning fish that weighed less than 10 lbs. Last year, the winner was an 11.4 pounder and second place was a 10.2 lb. flounder. With no limit on the range that anglers could fish, I was told that the winner was caught off of Barnegat, New Jersey. Hats off to the winners, but if I were the organizers I would consider placing a more limited range on where anglers can fish. That would level the playing field and keep it truly a “local” tournament. Again, big congratulations to the winners!
At Hook’em & Cook’em in the Indian River Inlet and Hook’em & Cook’em Outfitters in South Bethany, Capt. Bert Adams said that flounder fishing in the Indian River Inlet is spotty at best. He did have one angler hook 6 flounder on Saturday morning while fishing with Gulp New Penny Jerk Shad artificial bait. Although there are a few sea bass along the rocks nipping at baits, anglers in the Inlet are finding the most action at night with short stripers going after sand fleas or topwater plugs. The fish are in the 14 to 24-inch range, but most are between 14 and 18-inches.
Along the beach, surfcasters are catching kingfish, bluefish, spot, croakers and a few pompano during the day and sharks and rays at night. As Bert says, “there aren’t a lot of fish, just a little of everything.”
Anglers who ventured out to Fenwick and Isle of Wight Shoals are still finding bluefish and Spanish mackerel interested in their trolled spoons. Bert said that the bluefish seem more interested in silver, flashy spoons while the mackerel are hitting better on gold spoons.
Cobia are still being caught along the Delaware coastline with fish found from 1 to 3 miles off the coast. Tossing them a live eel or bucktail tipped with a strip bait or even a Gulp artificial bait has done the trick. Chris Albright from Mechanicsburg, PA was fishing with live bunker south of the Indian River Inlet when he caught a beautiful 40-inch cobia that tipped the scale at 26.2 lbs.
Headboats out of Indian River had weak flounder fishing so they flipped over to croaker fishing and found good numbers 2 to 5 miles off the beach. Clams are a great hardhead bait, but if you don’t have clams you can always use Fishbite clam flavored baits. They also work great.
At Lewes Harbour Marina, Capt. Tommy said that most of the fish they are seeing are flounder being caught on ocean structure. The flatties are quality fish and are being hooked on strip baits and Gulp Swimming Mullets. Spro bucktails must be the hot rig for ocean flounder fishing because I heard from more than one tackle shop that they got cleaned out last week in the days leading up to the Paradise Grill Flounder Tournament. Luckily, Bert at Hook’em & Cook’em loaded up on them so he still has some in stock.
Action in the Lewes Canal has tapered off, primarily due to water temperatures being in the low-80’s. Flounder fishing has been slow and stripers are still being picked at around the Drawbridge.
Anglers fishing off and around the Cape Henlopen Pier are still finding flounder, spot, snapper bluefish and croakers. Hardheads are also spread out all around the Delaware Bay reef sites.
Until next week, have fun and tight lines!
