Before a lot of you had even had the chance to read my last report our fishing action had taken a drastic change. This was not a change for the better! Over the past five days Sea Bass action has dwindled to just a mangy pick.

We saw signs early last week of the fish changing their habits. Subtle signs at first but by midweek we could no longer anchor over any structure with much success. With the weather pattern that we have had, the waters have warmed up considerably and fish just don’t seem to be on the move. Our best luck was on small structures that have not been fished over for most of the spring.

We have been able to see some beautiful fish during this past week just not enough of them. This 26-pound Rockfish was one of the biggest fish that was landed last week. Not exactly what you would expect fishing over a wreck at this time of year but nonetheless a great fish! There have been times when we anchor over a wreck and we catch a couple of handfuls of fish right away and then the action goes to nothing. Other times we catch nothing and can see the fish looming as much as 20 feet or more over the top of the wreck, maybe a couple of fish caught on a jig then nothing. Very frustrating! This occurrence is nothing new, we have seen this time and again, but that doesn’t make it any easier to swallow. We know that the fish that we are catching now are full of roe and perhaps this is at least partly to blame for the lack of angling success. Mother nature tends to take away the aggressive feeding appetite for spawning fish and makes them do funny things. Wrecks also have been hit hard over the past couple of weeks and with no sign of moving fish to fill these underwater structures back up, this is surely another cause for the diminishing action. Some spots are just plain “fished out”. Being in this business as long as I have, the list of excuses is almost endless but the bottom line is the same. Damn tough fishing.

With the lack of biting fish over the wrecks I have tried to spend some time drifting over the open bottom. While we have had limited success with this type of fishing it has shown good signs that we will be doing much more of this style fishing in our immediate future. Strong southerly winds and swift currents unfortunately have made drifting conditions almost unbearable these past few days. More excuses…. For a positive note we have seen about fifteen keeper Flounder over this past week and I am sure we will be seeing more of them in the days and weeks to come. There does seem to be a sign of Flatties on the “old grounds” and there are many confirmed reports of Flounder being landed up in the Delaware Bay. It would not surprise me that I will at least try the Bay for Flounder at some point this week. As I write this report I am currently fishing the old grounds and as of now we don’t have enough fish on this boat to feed a sick cat. This type of production would make just about anything look better. This beautiful double header of large Sea Bass was taken late last week on one of those small-unknown wrecks that I mentioned earlier. Beautiful fish, just not enough of them. Notice the one on the bottom hook that was snagged. I was over one spot earlier last week and we actually snagged more fish than we had hooked. Fish love is in the air! From past experience this spawn could go on for a couple of weeks and it is for this reason that I will more than likely be drift fishing for whatever we can catch most likely Bass and or Flounder. Wind and tide conditions will likely predicate where we spend our time be it the ocean or the bay. We know there are plenty of fish around in several locations, now all we have to do is get the conditions to prove it! I’m not going to give up on the Sea Bass completely I still believe that we are going to see some good mixed bag catches with Bass and Fluke. I just don’t think it’s going to be in the next few days. Things could turn around overnight with the right ingredients. You won’t here me say this often but we could actually use a little east wind to help turn things around for the Sea Bass. We have had over a week of southerly winds that seem to just pick up stronger every afternoon.

Just to put things in perspective I had the distinct pleasure of having my 12-year-old daughter Kacie and one of her close friends on board fishing with me late last week. Kacie managed to catch nine fish on this day including throwbacks and a Sea Robin. She only caught one Sea Bass that she could keep. I thought that this was one of the worst days that I have had all spring and she thought it was the best! I wish everyone were as easy to please!

I will continue sailing daily out of the Wharf with All-Day trips departing at 7:00 a.m. I will use all my resources to plan each day as it comes. No commitments on Bay or Ocean. Wherever we have the best chance of catching fish on any given day that is where we will be. Our Half-Day boat will also be sailing three trips daily, 8:00 a.m. 12:30 p.m. and then again at 6:00 p.m. with the Half-Night trip. These trips will be mostly in the Bay for now, concentrating on Flounder and Croaker. Capt. H.D. has had a couple of good nights on big Croakers real close to home!

If you would like any more information on trips sailing out of the Wharf please give us a call at (302) 645-TUNA.

Until Next Week Happy Fishing!

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