Fisherman's Wharf Fishing Report July 21, 2004

Fishing this past week aboard the All-Day boat Keen Lady IV has been interesting to say the least. This has been our best week so far with keeper sized Flounder and we have been consistently catching good numbers of some nice sized Croakers with a good mix of several other species of fish.

Flounder is by far the topic of the week. There have been several trips where lucky anglers have been able to catch their limit of four fish for the first time this year. Don’t get too excited. This is not what I would call good Flounder fishing by any standard. We are however, catching some Flounder on almost every trip.

The Flounder that we do catch have almost all been taken from some sort of bottom structure such as rocky bottom, mussels, coral, or artificial reefs. It is not always practical, and at times not even possible for us to fish over these types of bottoms. Conditions need to be just right. Some of my best Flounder action has actually been while we were fishing on the anchor, or when we have had very little drift. This allows us to stay close to the "good bottom" and on top of where the fish are.

When we have not been fooling around with the structure bottoms, we have been able to pick away at the Croakers at just about any time. This has made for some good action on almost every trip. I have also been seeing several spike Trout over the past week mixed in with the catch, some of these fish have actually been big enough to keep.

Along with the Flounder, Croaker and Trout we have also been seeing a few Triggerfish, Blues and lots of Junkfish. Some of the biggest and ugliest Oyster Crackers you’ll ever see have been landed in the recent days! MATE!!

A lot of people have been asking me about the lack of Sea Bass this year. Quite frankly I do not have a good answer. What I do know is that those who have no choice but to fish for the Sea Bass at this time are not making out to well. We are very lucky to have the option of running up into the Delaware Bay and catching some Croakers with a few Fluke mixed in. Without these fish it would be difficult for us to be putting a good day of fish catching action together.

It seems as though the Sea Bass are so spread out over the bottom right now that it is hard to put a decent catch of them together. Some of the Sea Bass that are coming in are still full of roe. This would indicate that the spawn is not yet at its completion. This also could be a reason for them to be so difficult to catch at times. I do believe that as the summer progresses, we will be seeing more and more Sea Bass caught.

We really have seen some good fishing over the past couple of weeks and the crowds have actually been at a minimum. I can’t think of a better time to go fishing! We will be sailing daily with the Full and Half-Day trips. If you would like more information on trips sailing 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) 644-0533.


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