With the big Memorial Day weekend came just about the nicest weather that our region has seen on a weekend in close to two months. Along with this nice weather I can honestly say that we have also seen some of our best fishing to date!

Last week started out with more unsettled weather only this time it hit us in the middle of the week. Our wreck fishing had been seeing an almost daily improvement. Finally after yet another strong northeast blow on Wednesday, the Sea Bass began to bunch up around the structure with more “backbone” than we have seen all season.

Action was the word all weekend. We started out on Friday with the biggest weekday crowd of the year and I am certain that this crowd was pleased. Limit catches of Sea Bass were not uncommon. Although most folks fell short of the 25 per man creel limit, coolers were looking mighty fine by days end! Along with great numbers of measurable sized Bass and tons of throwbacks there were citation-sized fish all around the boat. Not including the fish that have left the docks without being weighed, we have had over thirty citation- sized fish just in the last five days. Bluefish and Sharks have also added to the excitement. Each time we anchored over a new wreck the longer we sat the more Spiny Dogfish Sharks would swarm the boat and we would have to pick up and move again. Big Blues also kept anglers on their toes. We have landed a couple dozen of these choppers in the last few days and have had multiple bite offs. Blues took the pool on just about every trip. I have also seen a few keeper Flounder as well as a couple of Tog mixed in with the catch. Sea Bass is the talk of the docks though. Time will tell how well it holds up but they seem to be here now better than they were at this time last year.

Water temperatures, while still cold for this time of the year are gradually creeping up to more of a normal degree. As long as we can keep the sun shining this trend should continue. Ocean temps on the surface now are still only at about 54 to 55 however a couple of trips after sunshine all day I have seen surface temps close to 60 degrees in the mouth of the Bay.

We have most definitely been seeing some of the best fishing action of the year in just this past week. Anglers have had a hard time keeping bait on the bottom. If you didn’t get bites chances are your bait had been robbed! This action should continue for a few more weeks before the fish spread out along the open bottom and even then we should be able to put good catches together with Sea Bass just drifting.

There is good news on other fishing fronts also. Flounder are being caught now by those targeting them in several different locations both up in the Delaware Bay as well as in the Ocean. The way things are shaping up we could quite possibly have them like we did last year and maybe even better! You can bet that the first sign of the wrecks not producing to my liking that we will be fishing the “old grounds” and Fluke baits will be cut.

Night fishing was also good over the weekend. Capt. H.D. had limit catches of slammer Blues on Friday night for everyone onboard. Saturday night’s trip was cancelled due to the lack of sponsors however we did have a half-night trip that caught a big Drumfish. Half-Day trips also had success with Sea Bass and Sharks all weekend with sharp sticks catching enough for supper.

We are basically in our full summer schedule now with both Full and Half-Day trips running daily. I will continue sailing the Full day boat every day at 7:00 a.m. fishing over top of wrecks. Half-Day trips are also sailing daily at 8:00 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. and a Half- Night trip departing the docks at 6:00 p.m.

Capt. Rick Yakimowicz
Keen Lady IV
catchfish@verizon.net