 After my last weeks fishing report I’ve been out four more times and with the exception of my unexpected Striper trip on Black Friday, each trip was met with good to excellent success. Just before my last report that unfortunately missed the deadline for last week, we ran the last Special Tog Trip for the 2007 season. With a sellout crowd of 25 and fairly decent weather, this trip was really anything but special. Overcast skies and moon tides perhaps were the contributing factors to a long slow bite. Top hooks would only land a handful of Tog by days end and some guys, even though they lost plenty of bait, were wondering if they would ever get a decent pull on their rod. By days end we had landed only about 60 some keeper sized Tog. Ahhh… Blackfishing, you just have to love it!
 With lots of wind in the forecast my Friday’s wreck trip was scrubbed due to lack of sponsorship (thanks for watching the weather gang!) it would have been a victory at sea had we made the trip offshore for the Bass. Me like a dummy decided to sit around and sip coffee and ended up getting shanghighed into running the eight o’clock Striper Trip. Evidently the scheduled Captain must have overdosed on Turkey the day before. Now don’t get me wrong there are some things that I dislike more than Striper fishing but they might not be best for print. The cards were stacked against us from the start with Northerly winds blowing at 25 plus knots. We put the day in and we actually landed a couple nice fish but boy was it ever a long cold day for what would be the biggest Striper crowd of the year. My mate Capt. Alicen had one of the best analogies for Striper fishing that I’ve heard in a long time.
“ This is like looking for Sasquatch” was her statement to me and it sure seemed like a good way to look at it at the time!
 I was back in my comfort zone of wreck fishing on both Saturday and Sunday. Success varied for anglers on Saturday’s trip, there was a mixed bag of Sea Bass, Blues Porgies and even a few nice Fluke landed with some anglers actually scraping up a limit catch of Bass by day’s end, but the average landings around the boat were more like eight to fifteen nice keeper sized Sea Bass in the box and some folks with even less. Spiny Dogfish Sharks unfortunately made a good showing on Saturday actually chasing us away from one of the wrecks ruining what started out as a nice bite with the Bass. Sunday’s trip was much better. With half the size crowd that I had on Saturday there is no doubt in my mind that we had more limit or near limit catches around the rail than I have seen for all of fall. They were only a month or so late but it was great to see them; everybody had a cooler full of Bass!
 Water temperatures have crept down over the past week and the warmest that I saw on the Ocean over the weekend was about 56 degrees for a surface temperature. Bluefin Tuna and Bluefish could be seen feeding on the surface this past weekend for miles on what was likely a couple of nicest back to back days that you will ever see on the Ocean for this time, or any time of the year. Little to no wind, good visibility and slick flat calm seas all combined to make for a couple of really nice days on the Ocean!
 For the boats that fished inshore for the Tog and Stripers over the weekend Saturday was tough. Perigee tides and dirty water from the prior days wind made the Tog bite just about nonexistent in the Delaware Bay and in the mouth of the Bay. Striper fishing was a little better for a few lucky boats but still a lot like searching for Sasquatch for most others. Sunday bounced back for some with the Tog but they had to push further out into the mouth of the Bay to find the cleaner water. Stripers bit a little better for most boats on Sunday.
My last couple of days have been spent raking leaves and trying to catch up on some neglected work on the boats, perhaps Big Foot wouldn’t be that hard to find. My next scheduled trip will be this Friday. Depending on the crowds and the weather we will either fish the inshore wrecks for Tog or push towards the offshore wrecks for the Sea Bass. Striper Fishing is still trying to sail every day and my reports have been good for these fish finally starting a decent migration down the coast.
 The short schedule of Friday through Monday will continue until the 10th of December with the All-Day wreck trips and we only have two more special 12 hr. wreck trips scheduled for the 2007 season. A complete list of dates should be available for our 2008 Special Trips. On our home page at fishlewes.com just click on the special trips button off of the main menu.
If you would like any more information about trips sailing out of the Wharf or you would like to make a reservation for one of the upcoming special trips please give us a call at (302) 645-TUNA. Remember we also have gift certificates available upon request for any trips.
Until Next Week Happy Fishing!
Capt. Rick Yakimowicz
Thelma Dale V
catchfish@verizon.net |
