Three weeks in row and three positive fishing reports! What's going on! The Labor Day Weekend has come and gone now and it really seems as if the summer season has just started. As for the fishing?? It is absolutely better now than it has been all summer! On the inshore front it's Croaker city, a few decent Sea Bass and still some quality Flounder. The Offshore scene has been showing Bluefin and Yellowfin Tuna, Skipjacks and Wahoo along with some nice Mahi. The Full-Day and Half-Day trips as well as the private charters have all had success at catching fish this past week.On my All-Day trips I have spent just about every day fishing over the "old Grounds" out in the Ocean. A small crowd and some bad weather kept me close to home fishing the Bay and around the mouth of the Bay only one day this past week. Despite a good effort to try and see some Flatties while fishing close to home on this trip, a good bunch of Croakers and a few Snapper Blues is what we had to show by days end. I have been fishing back out front every day since then and we have continued to have fairly successful trips with a nice variety of fish including some nice sized Flounder, a few Sea Bass and as of just lately some of the biggest Croakers that I have seen so far this year. Seemingly overnight these Jumbo Croakers have showed up all over the open bottom of the very same grounds where we had been seeing mostly just Flounder and Sea Bass. Believe me we could have worse problems. Some of these Croakers that we have caught recently were over 17 inches long and would weigh in at over two and a half pounds. (I weighed them myself!) The average Croaks that I have seen on my all day trips in the last three days would be about fourteen to fifteen inches long with some of those jumbo Moby Croakers mixed in. These are nice fish and I cannot pass them up when I see them, they fill the buckets up pretty quickly.

Our Flounder fishing has still been kinda hit and miss depending on the conditions, on a good day with the Fluke we may see as many as a couple of dozen keepers with an average of about a one in five throwback to keeper ratio. Our biggest flat fish landed this past week was weighed in at just over eight pounds. I must admit it has been nice being able to throw in a mix with these nice sized Croakers and a few Sea Bass for a change just to help with filling up the coolers! A Seventeen-inch Croaker looks mighty fine in the cooler yet a nineteen-inch Flounder must be returned to the sea. Hmmmmm.

Our water temperatures have remained fairly steady at around 72 degrees for the most part out front lately and have been a little warmer up inside the Delaware Bay. Divers have reported that the Ocean bottom temperature is still quite cool and that the clarity of the water is horrible. This is a real turnaround from last year when at this time the water was crystal clear and the bottom temperatures were just as warm as the surface. We have had several days of some light northeast winds and perhaps this will help to push in some of the cleaner water that is offshore of our area. It seems strange pulling up a fish from the depths and not knowing what you have on the end of your line until it nearly breaks the surface because you can't see more than a foot down past the top. While this is fairly normal in the more murky waters of the Delaware Bay it is very uncommon while fishing out in the ocean, especially this far from shore.

It's hard to guess how this fall's fishing will ultimately shake out. What I do know is that there is an abundance of Croakers around right now that are willing to bite and some of them are really nice in size. The Sea Bass continue to be a big disappointment, even though there seems to be quite a few of them around the keepers are hard to come by. As far as our Flounder fishing is concerned, it still has its moments of greatness but it can definitely be quite frustrating at times. It is entirely possible that the cooler water temperatures have indeed been our biggest problem all along. These Flounder and Bass just don't always bite and they seem to be moving around more than they normally would. Perhaps it's the cold pockets of water. A variety catch of fish will likely be on the menu in the upcoming weeks. I'm not going to spend all day trying to catch just Fluke in lousy conditions when I know we can catch a good mess of these Croakers. Our Sea Bass fishing usually gets better around this time of the year and we can generally see a good mix with both the Croakers and the Bass and we will take the Flounder as a bonus. There is no doubt that we will continue to see some more of this good fishing in these next several weeks. Fabulous fall fishing has officially begun!

I will continue running Full-Day trips sailing daily at 7:00 a.m. expect a variety of fish. Our Half-Day trips will continue now daily with just the two trips sailing daily at 8:00 a.m. and then again at 1:00 p.m. these trips will be targeting mostly Croakers. There will be no more evening runs with the Half-Day boat. We still have several more long-range trips on the schedule a complete list of dates is posted on the special trip link from the home page.

If you would like any more information about trips sailing out of the Wharf or you would like to book a private charter or reserve a spot on one of the special trips please give us a call at (302) 645-TUNA.

Until Next Week Happy Fishing!

Capt. Rick Yakimowicz
Thelma Dale V

Fishermen's Wharf

Lewes, DE

http://www.fishlewes.com/fishingreport.html
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