Fisherman's Wharf Fishing Report April 28, 2004

As I write this I am sitting over top of a shipwreck in the mouth of the Delaware Bay. We have just caught a limit of Blackfish for the whole boat with the exception of a few holdouts. It is not too often that you can be selective and continue to throw keeper sized fish back until you get a bigger one, or perhaps even that citation fish that you know will bite on the next drop. This is the time of the year that it is possible. Tau Tog, or Blackfish as they are commonly called, are spawning at this time of the year and the creel limit is only three. This forces anglers to be very selective.

When these fish are snapping it is not uncommon to see an angler throw back fish that weigh five or six or even more pounds! Most folks will throw back ALL of the females and cull through the males searching for the "Big One".

Mackerel season has for all practical purposes come and gone for 2004. It will have to go down in the logs as one of the best years on Mackerel in the past decade. I only wish that the business had been as good as the fishing.

The bulk of the Mackerel are now making their way North staying with the cooler waters. We fished for the Mack’s on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, each day showing better fishing than the day before. By Sunday we had anglers that had landed fifty or more nice fish and in true Mackerel ’04 fashion, the best fishing was after 2:00 p.m. Just one more late day! Somehow knowing that this would more than likely be our last trip on these fish this spring, not even the mates complained! It was a nice season ender.

Most of our angling efforts now will be fishing over top of shipwrecks. Sea Bass and Tau Tog will be our target species. Depending on the Weather and conditions it is likely that we will be seeing quite a few more of these Tog for a couple of weeks.

The Sea Bass are definitely on their way in now and we should be seeing good numbers of them on any given day. There is the possibility that if we have a light crowd, or if the weather is bad, we will be catching more Tog until the Sea Bass become more abundant on the inshore wrecks.

We will continue to run seven days a week with the All-Day boat, provided that we have decent weather and a few folks. We will also be running 12 hr. Wreck trips every Saturday until the middle of May. If you would like more information about trips out of the Wharf or you would like to book a charter, please check out our website at fishlewes.com or give us a call at (302) 645-TUNA.

Until next time Happy Fishing!
Capt. Rick Yakimowicz
fishing@fishlewes.com
Keen Lady IV