Fisherman's Wharf Fishing Report May 4, 2004

We have officially started with our wreck fishing on the All-Day trips now for Sea Bass and I would venture to say that we will be sticking with this program for at least another couple of months

I have actually fished eight out of the last ten days with the All-Day boat and I think that this is a good indication that the season is off and running. All of our fishing over the past several days has been over shipwrecks in the depths of 70 to 120 feet. Some of our best action so far has been with the Tau Tog.

We are catching Sea Bass, but so far it seems that the water is still a little cool for any great numbers of these fish. We do seem to be catching more of them every day. Surface water temperatures are still just in the low fifties out to about 20 miles. The bottom temperature is undoubtedly several degrees colder!

Thursday of this past week was the first day that I saw any number of Sea Bass on wrecks within 20 miles of the beach. Some Anglers may have caught five or six keepers. This is no doubt a good sign as the water warms we will be seeing more and more of them. By the weekend we had some guys with double digits on keeper sized Sea Bass. So far the ones that we have seen for the most part have been real nice sized. I have already weighed in more than a half a dozen of Bass that weighed over the 3lb. minimum size limit needed for a citation in just a few short days.

One thing worth mentioning would be that over the past several days I have seen more Codfish than I have seen since I went to Massachusetts to fish for them. This is another sign that the water is still cold. A Codfish has won the pool for the biggest fish three days in a row. All of them have been in the 6 to 10 lb. range, certainly a nice bonus for those that have been lucky enough to land one of these beauties.

On Saturday John Kitch of Harrisburg was lucky enough to catch not one but two big Codfish, I told him how much my wife enjoyed them and the captain should get one of them, but he assured me that his wife enjoyed them more! Andrew Bastain from Emmaus Pa. also landed a real nice Cod, landing his on just a Bucktail of all things, while John Lewis had Saturday’s big money fish, landing another Cod that fell just short of ten pounds. There were several others caught this day, all tolled I think we had 16 Codfish on Saturday, which is the most that I’ve seen in quite a while on any of our boats.

Mel Hershey gets the honors for catching the first keeper Flounder of the ’04 season this past Friday. I think this was just a Fluke, I don’t expect too many Flounder to be caught for at least another month. We also saw the first couple of Blues of the season over the weekend.

Sea Bass fishing did leave a lot to be desired but with the Tog, Sharks, Bergulls, Eel Pouts and the Codfish mixed in it was interesting to say the least and there was no shortage of action for those at the rail. Most Anglers walked away with at least one or two meals and some good memories.

We will continue to run daily fishing trips over wrecks for several weeks now and this is just the beginning. This fishery will only get better as each day passes with an almost daily improvement in the numbers of fish.

If you would like more information on trips sailing out of the Wharf or you would like to make a reservation or book a charter. Please call (302) 645 TUNA or check out our website at fishlewes.com.

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