More seasonable weather has actually allowed me to get away from the docks six of the last seven days. This weather has certainly been a welcome sight! Just about all of our time has been spent anchoring over wrecks catching primarily Tautog and the fishing has been anywhere from frustrating to near limit catches of Tog for just about everyone onboard.

Veterans that target the Tog know the scenario all too well; fish not biting, anchoring conditions less than favorable, too hard to hold bottom, wrong tide, lost too many rigs, the guys on the other end of the boat are catching all the fish, the list goes on! There has even been a couple times where I just flat out couldn’t even think of a plausible excuse. Ah Toggin…. You just have to love it!

After a major coastal storm hammered the mid Atlantic region for most of last week, we ventured back out last Friday and other than being a fabulous day on the water and a pleasant change of pace from dock work the fish won that battle in a big way. Only one Tog would be landed by days end and that fish wasn’t in the pool. Ugh! We bounced back Saturday in a nice fashion, the Tog where willing to bite almost all day and many a limit of fish up to twelve pounds were tallied around the boat. Sunday was a similar day with the Tog biting nearly all day. I would rather not discuss Monday. I was very disappointed with production on Monday’s trip especially after what we had seen over the weekend and I really have no good excuse other than the fish won that battle again!

My last couple of days out have been pretty descent although yesterday the fish made us wait till almost noon before the bite started. Again many spring limits were landed and several of the bigger fish would weigh in at close to ten pounds. Our biggest Tog this past week would tip the scales at just under 14 lbs. As I write this it is not quite noon on Wednesday, I’m out again and the boat is well on it’s way to another very respectable catch. Why are they biting this morning when they didn’t yesterday? I guess because with fishing you just never know.

We did see a mix of Sea Bass with our catch over the weekend but not too many, maybe a couple of dozen keepers Saturday and Sunday and just a handful each other day. Quite frankly I didn’t even expect to see that many, it’s still early and the water is still rather cold. I hope that this is a good sign for what to expect in the near future. I would expect to see more Bass in the early part of May with the regular 8-hour trips but we will take the few we are catching now as a nice bonus.

Capt. H.D. had an extended 12 hour trip out on Saturday and had to travel much farther than he had hoped to catch the Bass with his best stops out beyond 25 fathoms. Top hooks on this trip ended up with a real nice catch with some of the Bass tipping the scales at five plus pounds. We will be running 12-hour trips for Sea Bass every Saturday now for a while departing the docks at 5:00 a.m. advanced reservations are required for these trips. We will also begin Night Fishing this weekend for Drumfish and Stripers The Striper fishery has been real strong over the past few weeks and the Drum are just starting to turn on good. These trips will be sailing at 6:00 p.m. and will return to the docks around 1:00 a.m. Remember even on those days where the weatherman says 70 degrees the water temperature is still hovering around the 50-degree mark and with any breeze on the ocean there is a great air conditioning effect on the water so dress in layers. This will be even more important on the night trips just because of the lack of sun and the cooler night temps! As for the regular all-day trips I will continue fishing over wrecks daily expecting to see mainly Tog but it won’t be long before we have significant catches of Sea Bass mixed with the catch.

If you would like any more information about trips sailing out of the Wharf or you would like to reserve a spot for one of the special trips or book a charter please give us a call at (302) 645-TUNA. If you were calling last week and couldn’t get past the busy signal this was due to a phone line connection and is all squared away now you should have no problems getting through.

Until Next Week Happy Fishing!

Capt. Rick Yakimowicz
Keen Lady IV
catchfish@verizon.net