WEEKLY “Gone Fishing” AT THE BEACH by Sue Foster

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WEEKLY “Gone Fishing” AT THE BEACH compliments of: Sue Foster, proprietor of OYSTER BAY TACKLE, Ocean City Maryland, and Fenwick Tackle, Fenwick Island Delaware. Sue provides us hopeful fish catchers with a timely UP TO DATE FISHING REPORT and other handy fishing advice.Original post at AtBeach.com |
Ocean City Maryland & Assateague Island – Delaware Beaches – Ocean n Bay Fishing Report By Sue Foster, Oyster Bay Tackle Shop, Ocean City MD – Fenwick Island DE May 27th, 2013 Water Temp: 57.0 Fishing Report by Sue Foster Memorial Weekend started off cold and windy. It finally got warmer on Sunday and the wind quit on Monday. Despite it all, we saw some fish. Before the blow we saw a LOT of nice stripers from the Inlet and Surf. So many sharks from the surf were reported I'm not even sure what kind they all were. Some were toothy while others had no teeth. I know some were smooth dogfish and some were black tip sharks. One picture looked like to be a dusky. Some good sized sea trout were reported from the sea wall in Ocean City and the Indian River Inlet. Some nice flounder were caught from the bay and inlet area. Blues were running from the Route 50 Bridge along with some catches of stripers. Tautog really picked up inshore on Sunday. Some black drum were reported by the Verrazano Bridge. Offshore, the sea bass bite was so-so. Weather didn't help... Further offshore the first threasher shark was caught. Oyster Bay will be open 8-5 Mon and Tues...-Wed and Thursday 7-7 Friday-7-9 and Sat- 6-8 & Sun-7-7. Fenwick Tackle will be open 8-6 on Tuesday and Wednesday) Thursday 7-7, Friday thru Saturday 7-9 Sun 7-7, Monday 7-7. E-mail Sue Foster at: Oyster Bay Tackle. The online mall is open. We sell MD licenses and 2013 boat stickers at our Oyster Bay and Fenwick Tackle locations. De Licenses are sold at our DEL location. I've been selling MD fishing licenses at Oyster Bay since we opened and it is really easy once you're in the system. If you have last year's license, bring it in with you, and all we have to do is punch in the DNR ID number to bring up your info! Otherwise, bring in your Driver's License. For DEL boat fishing stickers you MUST bring in a current boat registration and a driver's license. Locals, please try to avoid Memorial Weekend to get your licenses!!! We have plenty staff but you may have to wait and sometimes the systems get slow at times of high volume... BTW, There's a mistake in the MD Fishing Guide about clamming. If you are out of state it IS legal for you to catch clams in Ocean City. (Yea!!!!) The Bulkhead at 2nd thru 4th Street is finally finished and anglers can now fish there again. The Ocean Pier is also open. If you fish the bulkhead you still need to obtain a free registry. We can do that for you at Oyster Bay Tackle or call 1-855-855-3906. 2013 Tide Charts are now available in our stores and online. Go to our website and click on More Fishing Info. Flounder season is now open in MD- Minimum Size - 16" Creel - 4 fish open all year. (DE is 18-inches until they officially change it to 17-inches. I heard rumor that might be several weeks or longer...) New Ocean City chart by Capt Seagull available: Buy at Oyster Bay Tackle or online. The bay portion of this chart is a little small, but it shows the nearshore Reef Sites with numbers. 2013 White Marlin Open T's are here! Instore or Online. > 2013 Shark T's! In store or on Online. We also have the 2013 Shark Tank Tops. Stopping in to Oyster Bay Tackle or Fenwick Tackle? Clip out a coupon for xtra savings! Coupons Lots of fish were reported in the surf during the week. Mike Moss e-mailed in: "Hi Sue, Landed this 40†Striper on Fenwick Saturday morning thought I would share…lost another one but had our fill of sharks and rays as well. Caught on FRESH bunker." Jeff Tebay e-mailed in on Sunday: "My brother (Jamie) and I were fishing Fenwick (bath house) Tuesday at Dusk. 24Lbs, 38 inches, cut spot We caught a couple dinks, a few sharks, and too many to count skates." Frank Fetter of Ocean City, MD came into Fenwick Tackle with a 38.5" 18.5 pound striper caught from the Fenwick Surf using cut bait on 5/23/13. Happy Birthday Frank! Paul Norris e-mailed in on Friday: "I fished on Thursday at Conquest road and the wind blew hard. I was able to keep the bunker bait down with an 8oz sinker. I could fish only 3 rods as with the wind, the other rod was to light. It started off good as with 2 rods in I caught a skate and a black tip before I could get the third rod baited up. So on and on. sharks, all black tips, and while releasing one a guy drove up to my southern most rod in his truck. It turned out to be a surf fishing instructor, Harry Aikens ...as we were talking my middle rod goes down and I am hooked to a whopper cow nose. Three minutes into it the other rod goes off and I beg the surf fishing instructor to please help himself. We fight those devils for 15 or 20 minutes and land them both. Well that made us really good friends and we had a very good visit." Justin Lynch e-mailed in on the 18th: "Caught this 36-inch blue last Saturday in north oc. Also caught a few black tip sharks between 3 and 4 ft. I told Libby I'd give u a report if I caught anything that day after I picked up some fresh bunker from you guys. I'll be down again this weekend to stop by for some more bait. Hopefully my report will be of a big rock this weekend. Jim Thompson of Wilmington, DE came into Fenwick Tackle to get his pic taken with an 18 pound, 37" Striper caught from the Delaware Seashore State Park on 5/21/13 Eugene Markov e-mailed in on the 20th: "Thanks a lot for your fishing reports! I was reading those for a long time. But finally wanted to share with you a picture of my first striper of the year. This 33", 21lb striper was cought on fresh clam off the surf at Fenwick Island." Jim Thompson from Wilmington, Del caught a 33 inch Black Drum on Clams weighing 21 pounds on the Beaches of Delaware. Nate Neumann e-mailed in on the 20th: "I am a long time customer of Oyster Bay, I just wanted to send you this picture of my first keeper of the year. Caught it on Cape Henlopen, at the Navy Crossing, at 10:30 Pm Friday night the 17th on clam. 38†around 20 pounds. We caught a couple sand sharks as well that night. All these great pictures are in our Surf Fishing Photo Gallery. Lots of nice stripers were caught at the Indian River Inlet this past week. Some nights were hot and some were not. Just had to be there when the action was happening. John Pilcicki of Herndon was there! He came in to Fenwick Tackle to get his picture taken with a 15 and a 1- pound 15-ounce striper 33' and 31.5" caught on Storm Lures at the Indian River Inlet on 5/20/13. His picture is in our Delaware Photo Gallery. Many anglers ask about reading the beach when surf fishing. "Poppy" a very good angler has posted another very good description with pictures on Stripers Online. Check it out: Reading the Beach He draws it out completely! If you're not catching fish in the surf, you need to study this! Our online mall is now open and we have: Trailhead Tire Deflators! We also carry the Oasis Trailhead brand. Surf Packages, complete with sinkers. (Also flounder, Aqua-Clear, Swim Shad, and Got-cha Plug Packages.) J.J. from the Oceanic Pier (410-289-2602) reported good action on bluefish and shad. Flounder fishing was disappointing, mainly because of the windy weather. Some sea trout 20" to 25" were taken from the pier and the inlet wall this week. Also some stripers from the Wall and the Bridge. Blues and shad from the Pier, along with blowfish, rays, skates, and sharks on the windy nights. Tautog fishing picked up. (You do not need a fishing license to fish the Oceanic Pier.) Larry Jock of the Coastal Fisherman reports on Sunday: "Chuck Wenzel, David Oliphant and Dean Pecunes had 3 keeper flounder at the South Jetty this morning. All caught on white Gulp! Swimming Mullets during the incoming tide. Fish measured 17, 17 & 19-inches. The headboat, "Morning Star" picked at the sea bass today. The heaviest of the trip weighed 3.5 lbs. and was caught by John Strother at an artificial reef. Surfcasters off Assateague are up to their waders in skates and dog sharks. An occasional striper has been caught." On Saturday: ""Jezebel" returned with 34 sea bass, primarily from the Great Eastern Reef. Charter boat, "Lucky Break" returned with a 38-inch striper caught by Brooks Kline at the South Jetty. Caught on live spot. Charter boat, "Lucky Break" fished around the Assateague Bridge and had 5 black drum on clams." Stripers and Flounder! Pictures say a million words: Dan Conroy from Woodbridge, Va fished the RT 50 Bridge on Thursday night 5/23/2013 using Pink Zooms during the outgoing tide and caught a nice 43 inch Striper weighing in at 21 pounds. Dan got a nice Citation with this one. My husband, Bob Foster, caught a huge 26-inch 5-pound flounder in the bay behind Assateague around the Duck Blinds on 5/21 on live minnows. We had 5 keepers all together, all over 17" . The flounder was long but kinda skinny… it would have weighed 7 or 8 pounds in the fall! Charlie Donohue from Philly, PA came in with a 23 inch Flounder weighing in at 4.5 pounds during a High Tide in the Thorofare using combo of live minnows and fishbite. Oyster Bay Tackle's own Paul Coughlin better known as "Cog" fished with Capt. Charlie Donohue from Philly and Brian Mattingly of Salisbury Maryland on the "Lucky One Charters" on Tuesday 5/21/13. The guys fished the Thorofare during the Outgoing Tide and Paul came up with a beautiful 23 inch Flounder weighing in at 5 pounds using Live Minnows and Squid combo. Oyster Bay Tackle local Jake Allnutt fished the Ocean City Jetty Wall on Saturday night 5/25/13 and caught a 34-inch Striper weighing in at 12 3/4 pounds using a jig head with White Ice Soft body Zoom lure during the low out going tide. These pictures are in our Inshore Photo Gallery. Jeff Grimes Of Helbent Charters reports: "Snuck into town Thursday night hoping to get a trip in on Friday. Well mother nature had other plans for us! Not only did we not a chance to fish Friday the wind was stronger on Saturday plus Sunday morning the wind was still blowing a little too hard to make fishing fun. The bite has been good when the weather has been decent but those days have been few. Tomorrow is Memorial Day so give thanks for all those who servied and lets hope we finally get the brake in the winds and we get a chance to catch fish tomorrow! There is still time to book a trip so give me a call at 717-574-4010 or email me at helbentcharters@hotmail.com. Do not forget to check out our website at helbentcharters.com. See you on the water!" Helbent Charters is one of the few charters available in North Ocean City. Dave Beall of Dave's Delmarva First Mate Service reports: "This has been a great week for fishing and catching! Indian River Inlet has been really hot this week from last Sunday night all the way to the full Moon last (Sat.) night for big Rockfish. The best Bite has been in the dark but there were fish caught in the daylight as well. The best baits for these trophy size fish have been either 5" Storm Lures or 5" Tsunami Lures in the Golden Bunker w/Spots pattern, white Bucktails w/ red wrap and a white worm trailer in weights from 3/4 oz to 3 oz (depending on the depth of water) and 5" split tail Blue Back Herring (Heavy Version) Tsunami's. The Guys were really excited! One guy was so excited that he was running across the parking lot next to the Coast Guard Station and had his fishing rod and gaff in one hand and a huge tackle box in the other . Don't get me wrong; I get that excited too but its usually not about fishing! The Flounder have not turned on yet at Indian River Inlet. This is non-typical for there not to be more flounder than there are for this time of the year. Because of the wind yesterday (Sat.) Marina and I went to Trussum Pond (Near Laurel) where we found it to less windy, warmer and less crowded that IRI or other fishing areas at the Beach because of Memorial Day Weekend. Marina caught two huge Black Crappies on a red and white tube jig under a bobber. It would have been better if we had a boat with an electric motor though since there aren't many places to fish from the bank there. Trussum Pond is very pretty with lots of Cypress Trees and I am sure that we will be going back there again. Talk to you soon, Dave" Check out his new web site. Bluefish continued to be caught in the bay this week, mostly around the Rt. 50 Bridge. Guys fishing the Bridge caught some big ones along with some keeper stripers. A couple days of bad wind put a damper on the fishing. When it wasn't blowing too much, fishing was good. Apparently there was a big run of stripers in the Ocean City and Indian River Inlet on Friday morning before the wind started blowing. Indian River Inlet had a hot bite on Thursday as well. Had a customer say he caught 18 tautog with two fat keepers from the 2nd Thru 4th Street bulkhead on Sunday. He was using green crabs and sand fleas. Heard there were tautog caught from the Route 50 Bridge as well, and a pick-up on tautog catching from the Oceanic Pier. Flounder and Surf, Rig and Lure Packages, Selection of Swimming Shads or Gotcha Plugs! Capt. Monty on the " Morning Star sends us his update and comments on May 23rd: " Greetings All, Opening day of sea bass, May 19th, was announced by Maryland on May 18th. The fed never did announce. I keep hearing something about a press release in June.. Windy & Rough; borderline weather greeted us as we cleared the inlet opening day. I thought the hard part would be getting to a good reef in heavy weather, that the cbassing would be a cinch. It was not. In these opening days we've seen a summer pick, even a slow summer pick some days. Sending folks home with dinner; some with a few dinners. Have had a couple cbass close to 5 pounds & some clients in double digits. Working hard to get folks a catch. Fair many throwbacks; seeing a few tog and even some ling — no fluke yet. We had a long sustained ENE wind not too long ago; lasted almost 2 weeks. While scientists like to tell us about how warm surface waters have become with climate change: often warming's greatest perceived effect on our reefs is from melting ice-water coming down-coast with the Labrador Current & cooling the bottom. Those SCUBA divers I put down at the Radford May 10th, those Nitrox divers, they experienced not quite 60 degrees on the surface yet had 44 on the bottom.. Even though I think black sea bass are at a multi-decadal production low, Even though I think discovering & quantifying reef habitat's loss here in the nearshore waters of the Mid-Atlantic is a vital part of reef fisheries restoration, Even though I think allowing our cbass spawning stock to shrink owing to biological response from overdone size-limit restriction is management's greatest flaw: I believe what we have now, today, is fish missing — this shortage is because they haven't all come inshore yet. With chilly bottom temps a large percentage remain offshore. I hope. Time will tell whether the bite improves. As I have written many, many times; The single most important repair to this fishery—What we could swiftly do to improve cbass production—is to force more young fish into the spawning stock. Much more on that below.. The Hall's Restaurant Spring Reef Dinner went well. We quite nearly doubled last year's participation. Joe Hall & Family donate their staff, facility & food — Thank You! Oyster Bay Tackle owner Sue and her husband Bob, the good folks at Ake Marine, and auctioneer JL Cropper have long been the backbone of this fundraiser, have always been there — always. Joining in the heavy lifting this year was Benelli, especially their senior gunsmith, Randy, who donated a hand-made knife amidst mountains of other auction items. Anthony's Carryout donated carving of their delicious roast beef; Capt Kane on the Fish Bound donated a charter trip; Fleming donated two autographed pieces of sports memorabilia; Capt Dan of the Finchaser donated two reels; Capt. Victor from the Ocean Princess donated tickets; an anonymous angler handed me a fistful of hundreds; Gus from Accurate Pawn in Baltimore brought three nice St. Croix rods and assorted goodies; St Croix themselves donated a sweet tog stick, Seacrets gave us a nice gift certificate, All Tackle OC donated a bunch of deep-drop jigs, Gander Mountain in Pittsburgh donated several big boxes of goodies, Capt. Dan Harrison of Crisfield donated a splendid matted photograph, Dick Arnold had several of his photos present.. Too many to remember! Thank You All! The Ocean City Reef Foundation's mission is pretty simple: More Coral, More Fish. Have a new website about to debut at ocreefs.org .. Lot of pics. There's been a local battle over our tautog size limit. Somehow it was discovered that there were errors in the coastwide recreational tog catch estimates, and its obvious that MD's catch had plummeted since going to a 16 inch size limit. A very real sign of improving management; MD DNR Fisheries devoted a lot of energy to getting the tautog size limit reduced which would be consistent with nearby states. I very much appreciate that they carried the tautog idea forward. Its really quite different from DNR of decades past.. It just happens that I was an opponent; that I & very few others wanted to keep the 16 inch limit. I think this is the one fortunate accident of management's response to bad catch estimates in recent times. It was because "MD private boats caught 19,000 tautog in Mar/Apr 2010" (nineteen or 190 would be closer to the truth..) and similar ludicrous over-estimates that the size limit shot up 2 inches: We Were Falsely Accused Of Overfishing -Again– But here participants' pain will truly result in fisheries gain. Is already.. " Go to " Morning Star to read Capt Monty's entire newsletter... E-mail Capt Monty at: Capt Monty about upcoming trips or to subscribe to his newsletter: mhawkins@mediacombb.net Capt. Monty Hawkins mhawkins@siteone.net Party Boat "Morning Star" Reservation Line 410 520 2076 http://www.morningstarfishing.com/ Watch the weather. Help and Donate to the Ocean City Reef Foundation! http://www.ocreeffoundation.com/ It's a 501c3 tax deductable .org Joe at Lewes Harbour Marina (302-645-6227) reports on May 23rd: "Flounder Tourney Results The 2013 Canal Flounder Tournament held May 19th was a great success. This year's turnout was the largest ever. The weather was beautiful, and decent numbers of flatties were caught. Bragging rights for his winning 5.09 pounder go to James Stanley. Charlie Booth secured Second with a 4.24 pounder. Danny Schurman scored Third with a 4.06 pound flatfish. Jesse Steele's 4.04 was Fourth. Gene Stalls got a 3.98 pounder that was good for Fifth Place. Mike Hoffman had a 3.94 pound fluke for Sixth, and Will Wiedmann wound up Seventh with his 3.93 pounder. Twenty percent of the entry fees will be donated to Camp Awareness, which promotes education about the State's natural resources to young fishermen, hunters, hikers and other outdoor enthusiasts. We thank all who participated to make the day a fun event, and are already looking forward to next year's Tourney. Flounder continued to come from the Canal following the Tournament, though the numbers have dwindled compared to a couple weeks ago. It seems that the fish have started to move out into the Bay. Flukers on Katydid returned with the first nice catch of flounder from the open Bay last Saturday. They had 8 keepers plus a 32.2 pound striper that Captain Brent bucktailed off reef rubble. It's likely we'll see more fluke from structure like the artificial reefs, and inner and outer breakwaters in the coming weeks. Fishermen on the Cape Henlopen pier had flounder on speck rigs tipped with shiners or Gulp! They also reported increasing numbers of spot and croakers. Shore fishermen inside Cape Henlopen and on Lewes Beach also caught a mix of croakers, spot, kingfish, blowfish, bluefish and weakfish. Zach Brown brought in a beautiful 5.66 trout he took while casting a pink Gulp! from the beach. Sea trout have definitely come back in better numbers and sizes than in past seasons, and anglers targeting them around the Roosevelt Jetties, and the Inner and Ferry Walls have done well. Artificials such as Bass Assassins, Fin-S-Fish, Gulp! and paddletail worms were effective. There have been some surprises for trout fishermen tossing jigs around the rocks. Robert Perholtz was working a pink Gulp along the Inner Wall when it was inhaled by a 72.6 pound black drum. Amazingly, he was able to land the brute with the 10 pound test spinning outfit he was using. Just to prove it was skill and not luck, the very next day, Robert boated a 63.3 pounder at the same spot, using pink Gulp! on the same ten pound spinning gear! Those actually trying to catch a drum also got into some big boomers at the Coral Beds while baiting with surf clams. The fleet of New Jersey boats that had been fishing there disappeared, so it's likely they've located some schools on their side of the Bay. Spots such as Brandywine, Tussey's, the Pin Top and Horseshoe usually yield drum. This weekend traditionally offers the best action with boomers. Some of the most impressive specimens to hit the dock this week included a monster 93 pounder boated by Mark Butler aboard the Indian, and an 82.7 pound behemoth taken by Tom Kuzsma on the Pirate King. Richard Hammond had a 68 pounder on the Pirate King, and Chuck Coverdale captured a 67.3 pounder on the Indian. Kathy Rodgers checked in drum scaling 65.4 and 58 pounds. Nick Campbell nailed a 64.5 pounder on Martha Marie. Larry Grim landed a 62.5 pounder, and Scott Dostaz decked a 60.9 pounder, both aboard the Lil' Angler II. In recent days, drum seemed to feed more actively in the late afternoon rather than after dark. A lower Bay striper bite has failed to materialize, which is surprising since it's been so good in the upper Bay. However, there were some nice bass pulled from the surf during daybreak at Herring Point by casters using clams. Wayne Demarco and Wayne,Jr double teamed rock of 15.4 and 25.9 pounds. Martin Kris captured a 33.8 pound lunker rockfish. Andy Lano and Mickey Bremer limited out with 4 linesiders to 24.3 pounds. Robert Baum deployed a chunk of bunker to beach a 25.7 pound bass at Roosevelt Inlet. Sea bass season got off to a lumpy start, with high winds and rough seas last Sunday. Captain Brent on the Katydid pushed many miles offshore despite crappy conditions, and made several anchor stops. He said the structures were not loaded up like he expected, but his anglers picked some keepers at each spot, and ended up with a boat limit. Paul Pergeorelis put a 3.25 pound knothead in the box on that trip. Seas were friendlier Tuesday, and bassers aboard Katydid had a much better time of it. They returned with a 160 bass limit, plus 30 plump ling and a pair of nice cod. Boats working reef site 11 had good numbers of fish, but the majority were shy of the 12.5 inch minimum." Anglers need a DE Fishing License to fish, crab, and clam in DEL: Individual Delaware Fishing Licenses are now available online Stop by to the Oyster Bay Tackle location and buy your 2013 Ocean City Reef Foundation Charts. The donation fee for these charts are $50. $54 if you use a credit card. These charts pin-point all the GPS numbers for all the Artificial Reef materials that have been scattered near offshore wrecks, reefs, and obstructions. The charts give you hundreds of numbers to find fish. All the money collected goes back into the Artificial Reef Foundation. Come to Oyster Bay Tackle or buy online. (They are up in price, but all the numbers have been redone and the charts are in book-form.) Check out the link on our web site to the local chapter of the MSSA. They are keeping us abreast on all the Fishing Issues. From our Oyster Bay Website, go to "More Fishing Info" on the left hand side, and click on "MSSA Atlantic Anglers". Check the weather before driving hours to go offshore or fish the surf. Go to Coastal Marine Forecast to get an idea of the weather and height of the waves. Capt. Rick Yakimowicz of the "Thelma Dale V" fishes out of Fisherman's Wharf. Here's his report from May 22nd: The fishing that we saw on that opening day while somewhat disappointing to those expecting limits of nice fat Sea Bass was actually not horrific. We have certainly seen tougher fishing and it gets much worse than what we have seen so far. Top hooks each trip that I have made have been anywhere from the low to mid teens with the Bass and yesterday while scouring for something better we managed to find a nice batch of Red Hake (ling) that helped fill the boxes immensely. The part that has been hard to swallow is the fact that some folks are walking away with just barely supper. You can have one lucky stick land a dozen or so nice fish on a stop and the fellow standing beside catch next to nothing. I have also stopped over certain wrecks that would normally produce hundreds of fish this time of year and we caught nothing but Tautog or Bergalls. For me that is the most frustrating part. The beat goes on, this start that we have had is similar to the start that we have been seeing ever since we had opening days. There is no doubt that if we had been allowed to fish for the Bass a few weeks ago we would have had some really good trips. The weather hasn't exactly been doing us any favors either, we continue to have a big ground swell with all the southerly winds and the Bass generally bite better without the swells. Surface temperatures are up we have seen nearly 60 degrees at times on top however divers report bottom temperatures at only 44 degrees which is still a little cool in my book. As far as the outlook for our Sea Bass season this spring? The jury is still out. There is no doubt in the next couple weeks that we will have some decent fishing however it looks like we are going to also have some pain if some more fish don't move into our area as the water gets warmer. I plan to continue targeting the Sea Bass anchoring over wrecks rocks and artificial reefs as long as we continue to have success I just don't know how long that will be. After that we will likely start doing some drift fishing with a variety of both Sea Bass and the Flounder. All indications so far are pointing to a good season with the Fluke and everyone is looking foreword to being able to land the 17 inch fish this year for a nice change. Seventeen inches is the smallest size limit that we have seen in Delaware for a very long time, we actually get to keep a smaller sized fish than our neighbors in New Jersey for the first time I can remember. The New regulations will take effect on June 11th and by that time I am fairly certain that they will be at least one of our target species. If you would like any more information about trips sailing out of the Wharf or you would like to book a private charter or reserve space on a special trip please give us a call at (302) 645-TUNA. His full report and boat info is here. Capt. Rick Yakimowicz Thelma Dale V catchfish@verizon.net" Old Inlet Bait and Tackle (302-227-7974) reports on May 20th: " Weighed a 35 pound striper from the Inlet this morning and just weighed a 24 pound striper taken from the surf. Heard about some nice black drum on the beach too." The Inlet has been pretty good. The bite is not consistent but the fish are showing up about 3-4 days a week. On the off days they just pick at the fish. Stripers, blues and shad. The early morning hours have been good lately on the last part of the incoming and first of the outgoing tide. Bucktails, swim shads and eels have all been effective. We have weighed a couple of nice trout from the Inlet lately. Had some spike trout reported from the beach as well. Is the comeback on? Flounder fishing has been decent in the bay on the days the wind is not blowing hard. Those days have been hard to find. The VFW slough and Masseys and the hot spots. Gulp Alive and live minnows are the ticket. Bill's Sport Shop (302-645-7654) in Lewes, DE reports on May 24th that some nice stripers caught from the Indian River Inlet and also the surf. Flounder are biting. Kingfish, croaker, and spot at Beach Plum Island. Blues in the inlet and surf. Big drum in the Delaware Bay. Capt.Dan Stauffer (866-623-4746) of the Fin Chaser does wreck, inlet and trolling trips. Here's two of his reports from this week: "05/25/13 Today’s five hour charter was greeted with 25 knot west winds. Offering a complete refund and my advice to avoid the angry ocean. I told them our ONLY option would be to hug the coast and try for some tog. I also noted that sometimes tog don’t bite well when it’s this rough out. “Lets go capt.†was the cry. Managed to find a few hungry fish but all under the 16? size limit, and with 30 knot winds, we really couldn’t look any deeper. The guys had fun and everyone caught a couple tog. As they put it †what a great adventureâ€! 05/24/13 Out with a couple from northern MD for a day of sea bass and tog fishing. The sea bass bite was slow and after a few stops we decided to turn our attentions to tog. Bite started off slow but within thirty minutes the tog turned on. Unfortunately, so did the wind, which was to be west at 10-15 knots, NOT northwest at 20-25. Pulled the anchor a little early due to deteriorating conditions. In the slip with just under a dozen sea bass and one tog shy of our limit. 05/21/13 Out with a family of five who wanna have some fun and if they can catch a few fish, even better. Conditions were MUCH better than the last two days and the bite was better too. Back in the slip with a bakers dozen sea bass, a couple of them are nice big knot-heads." Larry Jock of the Coastal Fisherman reports The first thresher shark was brought to the scales Sunday by angler Charlie Lutes who was fishing on the "Shark Killer". The thresher was caught on a bluefish at the Fingers and weighed 178 lbs." ( Wilson Cropp Charters and Guide Service. Cape Charles, VA- 1-434-531-6376) Stripers....Flounder....Drum... Speckled Trout....Tog... Eco tours as well. Dave Beall has retired from his "real job" and has set up a little local First Mate Service. I have a lot of anglers ask to pay someone to go out with them on their new boat and show them the waters and how to fish. I also have anglers that would like to pay someone to teach them how to fish off the beach. Check out his new web site. (Just a note to say to my readers that many of my fishing reports are from other anglers and party boats that come over my e-mail. When I "copy/paste" their reports I try to leave them intact. It keeps the fishing reports lively and interesting. But any comments/politics within the quotes are their comments and views, and not necessarily mine.)
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