By the time most of you read this the Thanksgiving holiday will be just a memory and the leftovers will be stuffed in the fridge just waiting to be made into sandwiches for your next fishing trip. Our week of fishing here at the Wharf has been mixed up between Tog, Sea Bass, Stripers and Blues. With the exception of the Stripers I would have to call it a pretty good week.

We did miss last Thursday and Friday due to weather however we were back out in full force on Saturday. The Weather finally allowed Capt. H.D. to run the special 12-hour wreck trip and I ran the regular Full-Day excursion. With decent weather in the forecast we both decided to make the run out to the deeper Wrecks in search of the Sea Bass. While the 12-hour trip did the best at racking up big numbers with the Bass with the extra time, my regular full-day trip ended up pretty decent also. Sea Bass up to four pounds were landed on both the 12-hr. and the regular full-day trip. While I can’t boast limit catches with my regular trip top hooks landed about 20 nice keeper fish and of course the numbers of Bass went downhill from there with some folks only landing a handful of keepers on Saturdays trip.

What made Saturday’s trip was not necessarily the Sea Bass action but the blitz that we encountered with the Bluefish. I fished three different pieces on Saturday and what would start out as a good pick with Sea Bass of all sizes on each stop ended up with pandemonium with Blues that would range in size from about 3lbs. up to 13 pounds! Talk about non-stop action, the longer we sat in any of the three structures that we were anchored over the harder they came. At times seeing as many as six to eight people hooked up at a time and even landing double headers of chopper sized Blues. At times if you were lucky enough to get a Bass away from the wreck all you had left when you got to the surface was a fish that had been bitten off at the gills! Many anglers actually landed an unexpected limit of Blues on Saturday’s trip.

With the action that we saw on Saturday’s trip, I opted to take the run back out to the same area with Sunday’s crowd and guess what; in a true “scratch your head” fashion the Blues were not there. We caught some, but not like the coolers full we had seen less than 24 hours prior. You just can’t trust a fish! On the bright side we did manage to land some pretty decent numbers with the Bass with many folks keeping well into double digits with decent sized fish and steady throwback action nearly all day. I guess it does make a difference when the Blues aren’t chasing the Bass around the wreck in a feeding frenzy.

Striper fishing over the weekend was somewhat of a bummer. I’m not sure whether it was the boat traffic or the conditions or just too much salt water and not enough fish but Striper landings were down for nearly every boat that targeted them on both Saturday and Sunday. In fact there were several boats that came home flying the PePe Le’ Pew flag. This was not really typical of the way the Stripers had acted throughout most of the week with several boats having their best days of the year just before the weekend.

With water temperatures still relatively warm for the time of year you have to think that the best of the Striper action is yet to come. Surface temps in the Delaware Bay have been hovering around the fifty-two to fifty-four degree mark while the Ocean temps twenty miles from shore are still hanging at just under sixty degrees. Things are most definitely changing though, we have seen our first Spiny Dogfish Sharks for the Fall season over the wrecks just this past weekend and the Striper boats in the mouth of the Bay have also seen a few of these pesky critters slashing up the eels. If we can keep the “horndogs” at bey we should be able to continue seeing decent catches with the Sea Bass when we are able to make the trip to the offshore wrecks and I do believe the Stripers will only get better.

We have started the short schedule now with the All-Day wreck trips. I will be sailing just Friday’s through Monday’s until the 10th of December. These trips will depart the docks at 7:00 a.m. and return sometime around 4:00. These trips will target either Sea Bass or Tautog depending on weather and crowds. Striper fishing will continue to sail daily until further notice departing the docks at 8:00 a.m. We will also continue to take reservations for the 12-hour wreck trips, which will depart on Saturday’s at 5:00 a.m.

If you would like any more information about trips sailing out of the Wharf or you would like to book a charter or reserve a spot for one of the Special Trips please give us a call at (302) 645-TUNA.

Until Next Week Happy Fishing!

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