Delaware coast fishing in September can be magical with blues and other fall fish
“When the autumn came to our coast, just a little ahead of the quail shooting-season, when all the summer visitors went away … and the gray-shingled little beach houses had their windows tacked shut against the northern gales, when the skies got as gray as the shingles and a wood fire was nice at night and all the little shops closed … the bluefish cannot be far behind.” — September’s Song, "The Old Man and the Boy," Robert Ruark
It is the time of the surf. Funny how a thing like a bluefish can mean so much at different times of the year. To a troller working along the 20 fathom line in July, hoping for a tuna, a big, hulking 15-pounder means no more than a shredded ballyhoo or lure.
In June, the same fish might mean a mako bait to be suspended under an old Clorox jug, dangled in a bunker chum slick spreading over a calm, glassy, sun-splashed sea.
A 15-inch blue in September surf can seem so much more than the same fish jigged up along the sea bottom in August.
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September, particularly late September, can truly be a magical time along the lower Delaware coast.
The sand cools more quickly in the evenings now and surf anglers have to work down through the layers to find the warmer grains below. Often you have to resort to jeans which, invariably, you’ll forget to roll up and will be surprised when a wave rushes in way faster than you expect.
The water will roil and wash and deposit sand all along the cuffs, where it will chafe as you walk back to the truck in the gloaming dark of evening. All along the road and at the end of the dunes will sway shaggy goldenrod heads, full and resplendent in their autumnal fire.
There are blues now, not the big, brawling bruisers of May but snappers of September. Most of the reports are south of the Cape, which figures as that’s where the bait is. There are mullet down there and the blues are following them right up into the wash and into the inlet.
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Other fall favorites like whiting, which up north here we call kingfish, and the odd pompano and speckled trout are also in the mix.
In other fishing news, Capt. Rick Yakimowicz, aboard the all-day headboat out of Fisherman’s Wharf in Lewes, and Capt. Carey Evans on the Lewes charterboat Grizzly, both report good fishing for sea bass on their last trips before the wind and rain of Jose.
Limit catches of bass have been reported by local anglers on both boats. Capt. Rick reported that they had well over 40 keeper fluke on his last trip before Jose.
Hopefully Maria is going to track well offshore of us along the Delaware coast and we’ll get to settle in and enjoy the best fishing of the season.
Good luck and good fishing!
Reports, comments or questions to captjackrodgers@comcast.net