Capt. Jack: Finally, some good fishing news in Delaware waters
"The crickets felt it was their duty to warn everybody that summertime cannot last forever. Even on the most beautiful days in the whole year — the days when summer is changing into autumn — the crickets spread the rumor of sadness and change." — E.B. White, "Charlotte’s Web"
Finally, some good news!
Though it’s hardly on the order of the last few years, summer flounder fishing in the ocean has taken a marked swing upward, with multiple boats reporting the upswing in action.
Occurring on the heels of a nor’easter, which seems to have “shuffled the deck” in angler-speak (moving the fish around into new locations), some more fish have been dealt to local anglers, and just in time for sure.
“It’s definitely been the best flounder fishing we’ve seen this season,” said Capt. Rick Yakimowicz of the all-day head boat out of Fisherman’s Wharf in Lewes. “We have had multiple limit days and plenty of action on short (not legal) fish on recent trips. It’s felt like we were actually fishing again.”
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The "short" fish have been just short, too, keeping anglers on their toes.
“No question many have just missed,” said Yakimowicz. “On several days, if it would have been last year (16-inch minimum size versus this year’s 17) we would have had the whole boat limited out and been done early.”
Bouncing bucktails baited with a strip of smooth dogfish, sea robin or cut bluefish has been a way to go for anglers trying to jig up dinner. Using enough weight to keep your line as straight as possible has been effective. Gulp! twisters and swimming mullet has been effective as well.
Artificial reef sites, coral upcroppings and high spots along the shipping approaches to Delaware Bay in the Atlantic have been the best.
According to Old Inlet, some flounder have also started to show along the sides of the thoroughfare along the south side. Pitching baits close to the rocks has been and continues to be the way to go for catching a fluke dinner from the Inlet. Some small blues have also started to show, along with some triggers.
Small blues have also been reported in the surf along the Atlantic. Numbers of peanut bunkers are starting to appear, which should help pull the blues into the wash.
It seems like the mullet start to run earlier and earlier each year, and any sort of action along the surf will be well received. These fish are hardly the big choppers of the past few springs but can fill in the edges of what has been a lackluster summer thus far.
In Shark Bay, along with the ubiquitous sandbars we have actually seen a few more croakers settling in. Mind you these are small fish in the 6- to 8-inch size and should be a welcome relief for the trout, as it gives the sharks something else to gobble up. Bay structure has yielded a smattering of flounder along with some small blues, the occasional trigger and some porgies.
Hope! Hope, I tell you! Maybe things are finally starting to kick into gear just in time ... because Labor Day is right around the corner!
Comments, questions or reports to captjackrodgers@comcast.net