I have seen a lot of changes over the past two weeks. We had some of the best Flounder fishing you could possibly ask for. We had our first three-days of dry northeast winds blowing in our area which included a day off, and we also had several cool nights almost making it feel like fall. Now we are back into summer like weather conditions once again. With these changing conditions our fishing has also seen some big changes.

The northeast winds that we saw last week shuffled the deck of cards so to say. Fish were on the move. We found Croakers, Blues and Trout where we had been seeing primarily flat fish and Bass, and the Flounders have been somewhat elusive. It has been hard to tell whether they were gone, not biting, or if conditions were just such that we couldn’t catch many of them. We did know what the bottom line was though. Not too many Fluke. I had a couple days with just a handful of Flatties and several days with well into double digits. We did manage to make out with a variety of other fish on most trips including Sea Bass, Croakers and Blues. It seems as though there are a lot more throwback size flounders around now and at times even plentiful, we do however manage to see some big ones almost daily. On this particular day (9/13) we have literally caught Flounder all day long. The majority of these fish fell short of 17-½ inch minimum but some folks managed to catch their limit including some very nice fish, and most everyone caught some keepers. Ken Philbrook from Chevy Chase Md. Is pictured here with the biggest Flounder of the week. Kenny landed a nice limit of Flounder and some big Sea Bass with me on Tuesday 9/13 including this doormat that fell just shy of nine pounds and took the pool.

While it is true that we are catching nowhere near the numbers of big Flounder like we had been just a couple of weeks ago, days like this prove that they are still around and given the right conditions you still stand a good chance at a big Flattie. I have seen quite the variety of fish in these past several days including the normal Bass, Fluke, Blues and Croaker. But we have also seen Mahi, Bonita, Little Tunny and Triggerfish. This shows that fish are most certainly on the move. I have also seen a few Porgies, Pigfish, Kingfish, Rays and pelagic Sharks. The water is still very warm and relatively clear so just about anything is possible. Just two days ago, a commercial boat tending Lobster traps just a mile away from where we were fishing saw a White Marlin!

Mother Nature is promising another “shuffling of the deck” later this week. By the time a lot of you read this, tropical storm Ophelia will have passed through our area giving us wind and waves that we would probably do better without, also leaving us with a ground swell and some churned up water. There is good news though. It appears as though this is going to be a quick passing system well offshore and the effects should be minimal. With the amount of fish that I have seen around in the past week or so we should bounce back with no problem.

In the upcoming weeks I would expect to see a nice variety of fish. Depending on each day’s given conditions it may be more of one species than another. Croakers, Blues, Sea Bass and Flounder are all abundant now and will be at the top of the Menu. I will continue to drift whenever possible as these fish are still spread out over miles of bottom. It is also quite possible that if drifting is too tough that we may anchor over structure, still seeing a variety of fish.

As promised I am including a couple of pictures from last weeks Tuna chunking trip. Thanks to the Ladies at “old hookers” bait and tackle for providing a couple of great shots of some beautiful fish landed on this 22 hr. overnighter. These were some awesome fish and Capt. H.D. is looking foreword to doing it all over again this weekend. If you are interested in reserving a spot for one of these special trips please give us a call at (302) 645-TUNA.
We will continue with All-Day trips sailing daily up until the middle of December departing at 7:00 a.m. and our Half Day trips will now be running On Friday, Saturday, Sundays, and Mondays until the end of this month at 8:00 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. We have a multitude of special trips scheduled in the weeks to come including our 10 hr. Tog trips. I am informed these Tog trips are booking up fast so if you are interested in reserving for one of these limited space trips make plans soon.

Until Next Week Happy Fishing!

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