Weather remains our strongest enemy! Just when it seemed as though we had the ball rolling with our spring Sea Bass run Mother Nature comes along and throws us a blow like we rarely see around here. I mentioned last week that we had encountered a coastal storm, well this storm had winds blowing in excess of 50 and 60 knots for several hours and ended up generating wave heights off our beach that blasted the coast at over 20 feet high and gave us some severe coastal flooding early last week.

Needless to say we missed a couple days during and after the blow but when we finally got back out fishing on Wednesday we found huge ground swells still rolling in and fish that just weren’t biting. It would embarrass me to print just how many Sea Bass we caught a couple times last week on our trips so I’ll just tell you it was pretty bad! Eventually the large swells started to subside and we did start to see a little better bite with the Bass by yesterday (5/19) but still far less than what you would expect for this time of year.

Water temperatures took a significant dip after the blow, where we had been seeing temps as high as 60 degrees out front now they are more like 55. Even the Delaware Bay saw a big drop in water temperatures but it seems to be climbing back more rapidly than the Ocean. Our weekend saw picky fishing over the wrecks with Sea Bass of all sizes up to about four pounds but still no big numbers. Top hooks would land close to or just over double digits while several folks would barely get enough to stink up the pan if that. Yesterdays trip was the first real sign of improvement as far as I am concerned but still left a lot to be desired. More Sea Bass seemed to be hungry but we also saw some “dry holes” showing me that these fish just don’t seem to be on the move right now the way they should be. Several folks however, did manage double digits with keepers by days end. Time will tell just how good our Sea Bass fishing is going to get in the immediate future but I’m sure that the water temperatures and the seemingly endless supply of winds from one direction or the other has played a major roll in our slow production since early last week.

A bright spot this past week would be the Drumfish bite. The Drum fishery busted wide open with these brutes in the last several days providing some of the best Black Drum fishing you’ll likely ever see. Drumfish up to nearly 90 pounds have been coming across the docks now for several days and fishing like this should continue for a few more weeks providing excellent charter or head boat opportunities. Our open boat will sail this weekend on Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights departing the docks at 6:00 p.m. Also if you can get a group of eight or so people together we will sail any night that you can make it with the open boat or you can book a private charter on the Lewestown Lady, just give us a call to set things up.

I will continue sailing daily at 7:00 a.m. fishing over top of wrecks and artificial reefs targeting mainly Sea Bass with our regular Full-Day trips and our Half-Day fishing trips will kick off this weekend sailing at 8:00 a.m. and 1:00 p.m. fishing for whatever they can catch on any given trip. We have also decided to add in a couple more long-range deep drop trips this Spring, one of which will be Saturday June 7th departing midnight Friday and the other will be Sunday June 22nd departing Saturday night at midnight. These trips will target Tilefish, Bass, Wreckfish and any other critters that may bite in the depths at this time of year. Advanced reservations are required for these long-range trips and space is limited.

If you would like any more information about trips sailing out of the Wharf or you would like to make a reservation for a special trip or book a private charter please give us a call at (302) 645-TUNA.

Until Next Week Happy Fishing!

Capt. Rick Yakimowicz
Thelma Dale V
catchfish@verizon.net