With the exception of Saturday’s northeast blow we have had an outstanding week of catching fish. In the last seven days I have see some of what makes fall fishing one of my favorite times of the year. You just never know what to expect from day to day.

Much to my surprise we have actually had a couple more days with good Flounder action catching a large number of throwbacks as well as keeper sized fish. We even had some citation sized Flounder and Sea Bass thrown in to keep things interesting. We have also seen some of the best Sea Bass catching action since the spring. A few days this past week drifting was not the best option so we ended up anchoring over some small wrecks and a few of these spots produced big time. I have even seen a few lucky anglers land a limit of Bass this past week. I was beginning to wonder if that would ever happen again. Croakers and Blues have also been very cooperative. On Monday with a small crowd and way too much wind, we pulled a one-stop shop on the anchor catching Croakers, Blues, Small Trout and a few Sea Bass.

We seemed to have no shortage of wind in the past few days. Northeast on Saturday, hard Southerly on Monday and equally as hard Northwest winds on Tuesday. There must be a change of season in the air. Saturday was the worst. Only a few folks showed up early Saturday morning and with the 20 to 30 knot breeze blowing, the Half-Day trip was all we were able to get away from the docks. Capt. Mike’s only option was to fish behind the Breakwater catching a few Trout and Croakers and a plethora of junk fish. The winds abated by Sunday and we were back hard at it, however fish really didn’t cooperate until later in the day when we anchored over a wreck and went from a bum to a hero in just a short amount of time. Sea Bass were snapping and most of them were keepers. We also mixed in a few Jacks, Triggers, and Snapper Blues with the catch. Sunday was a good day!

If I had to guess what we would be doing over the next week or so I would have to say much of the same. I do think that the Flounder catches we saw last week were more than likely the last hoorah for drift fishing on just Fluke. They have dwindled considerably over the past few weeks and are possibly not even worth targeting now with a crowd. Even though it is still quite possible to see decent numbers of Flatties caught in the next few weeks they will more than likely be caught as a by catch. I think most of our efforts will be with the mixed bag fishing on the drift and with the Sea Bass on the anchor. I do know this, the days of fishing with 16 ounces of lead on the drift is over for this year. The moment we can’t hold bottom with a reasonable amount of lead while drifting we will most certainly be dropping the anchor.

Despite all the wind and waves we have seen over the past seven days water temperatures have remained steady. Fish are everywhere right now and with the right conditions we should continue to have more of this fabulous fall fishing. We will continue with All-Day trips all the way up until the 15th of December sailing daily at 7:00 a.m. Half day will be running on Fri. Sat. Sun. and Monday’s until the end of September. Striper Fishing will start shortly after that however with the current water temperatures I wouldn’t look for the Stripers to go for at least a couple more weeks. I will try to keep you posted on the Stripers but as of now there are more of them feeding at our fish cleaning station than there are out in the rips! We also have a multitude of special wreck trips scheduled starting in October, which will require advanced reservations.

If you are interested in reserving a spot for one of these special trips or you would like any other information about 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