In Delaware Bay, the new normal for big blues

“At last came the golden month of the wild folk — honey-sweet May, when the birds come back, and the flowers come out, and the air is full of the sunrise scents and songs of the dawning year.” —Samuel Scoville Jr., Wild Folk

There are certain months in the angler's calendar that you look forward to. October with what used to be the traditional start to tog season and its mullet runs, shooting and showering out of the surf like a skein of fallen leaves blowing in a courtyard corner.

November brings dead cornfields, shocks of corn that haven't fallen to the incessant wind or combines stand like skeletons and, along our coast, striped bass pass by (often too far offshore!) chasing the schools of bunker south.

And then comes May.

Though the last, what, five or so have been chilly there is always the hope that things return to form. The dogwoods will bloom and the drum will boom. And this year, once again, it's about bluefish.

Now, back in the not-too-distant-past bluefish along our coast in May was a normal sort of thing. The fish would work up the shipping lanes off the inlet and boats would pull "ragmops" (aka ponytails) which were nothing more than a chain with rubber whiskers threaded through with a big hook at the end.  The winter chilled bluefish, called "racers" because they were all head and skinny body, didn't care and would latch on.

The slammer worked up into the Delaware Bay and the technique would change to bucktailing. Boats worked so close that the late Capt. Buzz Adams would wear a baseball batting helmet.

This May the blues are in fact back but nobody's pulling hootchies for them anymore. This year, as in the last few, the big blues come into the Delaware Bay, hook a sharp left and hang around the beach inside the point. There, anglers are catching them on poppers and bunker, though the plugs are certainly the best attractant at the moment.

If the fish follow form from recent years, they will not only NOT run up the bay, but they will turn up the Broadkill River where it's posited by those that know that they are following some abundant food source?

White perch perhaps?

No matter what that the reason might be, I suppose, that's the new normal of bluefish.

Tog fishing has been good for anglers working reefs, rocks and wrecks. Crabs are by far the best bait. The bite has been good, with Capt. Rick Yakimowicz reporting that fares on both of his last trips out walking off with a full boat limit of tasty blackfish.

Drum fishing has started with a few handfuls of fish being nabbed from the surf. Perhaps, too, they will run up the Broadkill after the abundant migrating surf clam. Seemingly of hardier stock about where they swim it's more likely that they will be more faithful to normal migration paths and head up into the bay.

Surf clam is by far the best bait for the boomers. Order these ahead of time.

The weather forecast is spectacular for the weekend so get out there and go get 'em! Good luck and good fishing.

Reports, comments or questions to captjackrodgers@comcast.net