Well the big Labor Day weekend has come and gone and what a weekend it was. We ended last week with some real strong Flounder catches but as we progressed into the weekend you could almost feel that things were going to change. After a good week of catching a real nice variety of fish, towards the weekend the Croakers kinda vanished from the area we had been fishing and all we were seeing was Fluke and Bass with just a few Croaks and Blues in the mix.

Saturday the winds blew hard and pretty much put a kibosh on all Flounder drifting efforts. With Northeast winds in excess of 20 knots all day the anchor was just about our only option. A couple of weeks ago this plan worked out great with nice Flounder on a windy Saturday however this Saturday we saw just about as close to a true “Saturday Sting” as you can get. Only a handful of keeper Flatties were landed and naturally the Croakers just wouldn’t cooperate for us. Fish dinners were a sparse commodity this day!

The weather turned around on Sunday and it was about as nice a day on the water as you could ask for. Unfortunately just about everything that could float was out on this beautiful day. It has been a long time since I have seen so many boats out fishing, if ever. At one point Sunday I counted over 140 boats in one square nautical mile of artificial reef. The Flounder didn’t stand a chance. There were quite a few fish caught but we certainly didn’t get our fair share, they were spread few and far between. The real crazy part was about ninety percent of these boats fishing on the Delaware reef were all from New Jersey and they were all targeting the Fluke with a smaller size and bigger bag limit than we fishermen in Delaware are allowed. Hmmmm.

While the total number of Fluke landed for us last week was down from what we had been seeing over the past several weeks we still did manage to catch some pretty impressive fish. Sea Bass also showed in good numbers several days however, again a lot of these fish fell short of the twelve-inch minimum size limit required. There were a few trips where anglers actually caught Sea Bass as fast as they could get the bait on the bottom but they only managed to keep a handful by days end, really not bad fishing though considering sometimes you wait for an eternity just for a bite! I did see a few lucky anglers land double digits with keeper Bass over the past seven days but when I say few, that’s what I mean just a few. More realistically you could wind up with a handful of keeper Bass and hope that the Croakers and Blues bite along with a Fluke or two and then…. you have had a big day. It’s possible, this is fall fishing after all and you really don’t know what to expect or what will bite the best on any given day.

Water temperatures have been stable out front at around seventy-five degrees, fish are on the move and anything is possible out there right now. We have seen Mahi in as close as fourteen miles from the beach, there have been several Cobia landed from the “inshore” waters and there is a virtual plethora of life within twenty miles of the coast as well as in the mouth of the Bay right now including; Whales, Manta Rays, Sunfish, Sharks, Turtles and all kinds of baitfish. When everything falls into place we will certainly be seeing more awesome mixed bag catches on our trips.

The outlook is good for the next few weeks, Look for mixed bag catches fishing in anywhere from about 60 to 95 feet of water. Some days we have had to use as much as 12 or more ounces of lead to stay in touch with the bottom but most of the time just 8 or 10 will do. Now, if it gets that hard to hold bottom it is likely that I will anchor down over some type of structure bottom or over a wreck just so you can stay in touch.
I will continue with the All-Day trips daily sailing at 7:00 a.m. until well into November. Our Half Day trips are just running two trips a day now until the end of this month 8:00 a.m. and then again at 1:00 p.m. Croakers continue to be a mainstay with the Half-day trips. If you would like any more information about trips sailing out of the Wharf or you would like to reserve a spot on one of the upcoming Tuna Chunking Trips on the big boat please give us a call at (302) 645-TUNA or email me.

Until Next Week Happy Fishing!

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