Cape May Fishing Report Aug 1 to 31

[CapeMayRay]

Canceled this mornings trip with rain and chance of thunderstorms. Turned out to be a pretty nice day for the most part after noon time.

Had my brother-in-law down and decided to try and sneak in a trip this evening with radar showing storms over Delaware and the wind down to zero.

Left the dock at 6:00pm with it being dead calm and we headed to the back bay with the incoming tide and started fishing in 3 feet of water. Water temp was 78 degrees. We started getting bluefish. Brother-in-law was using a popping plug and I was using one of my Steroid rattling gurglers on floating line with my best one almost 19 inches.

My brother-in-law got a nice striper, which was the biggest fish of the night.

About an hour into the fishing we started seeing lightning off in the distance but could hear no rumbling. By about 8:00pm the lightning was getting closer and more spread around us, it was starting to drizzle and we could hear thunder, so we decided to head in.

Heading in there was a fog on the water and we could feel it being fairly cold. Looked the water temp and the incoming water was 68 degrees. (guess that was from the offshore storm.)

[CapeMayRay]

Didn't have a charter tonight and wasn't planning on fishing, but company left after a rain shower it was calm and the sun came out so I thought I would give it a shot.

Disappointing night. Left the dock around 7:00pm. and headed to the back bay flats to work the incoming tide. Water there was 78 degrees with some bait fish around. Caught 3 small blues to 17 inches on my steroid rattling gurgler and missed a few.

Gurglers seems to be holding up pretty well with the number of blues that have hammered it.

The incoming tide again was a bit cooler and around dusk the water had dropped to 75 degrees. After dark I went further back on the flats and tried some creek mouths and weed beds and found them dead with no hits, and no signs of activity like I would expect to see. Even changed to a black steroid rattling gurgler.

Before heading in I tried one last spot closer to the inlet where I found 70 degree water around some structure. Caught three stripers there but the were real dinks. 14, 15 1/2, and 16 inches which took and olive/white clouser on intermediate line. For such a nice night the action was very poor. Water didn't look all that great considering the water at the beach today at high tide looked beautiful. Might just be the effects of all the heat we have had this last week and the rain.

Was back at the dock at 10:00pm.

[CapeMayRay]

This week we are coming into a crappy tide time. Both high tides of the day are on the low size and the low is lower than normal. This happens every once in awhile. With both being lower high tides the tidal flow is weak compared to normal tides. I find the fishing is not as good during these times. You can still catch but the fishing is generally tougher.

Talked charter into moving his trip to tonight as it was going to worse later in the week.

We left the dock at 5:00pm. with the tide still going out. Tide was already so low in my marina I had to move out of my slip by electric motor at 4:30pm or be stuck on mud at charter time.

Headed out to the inlet to see if we could find any blues or birds. Water was 75 degrees and no signs of life other than some bait fish. Started fishing and had some blues following lures but not hitting. Since the 10 year old could not cast I set him up with a bobber and 6 foot leader with a 1/8 ounce buck tail with squid strip and told him to watch it and when it went down he would have a fish.

He was relaxed and doing just that while his dad and grandfather were casting plugs.

The bobber worked good and he got a few blues.

Grandfather and dad started getting some blues when the tide started to come in along with a Spanish mackerel. About 15 minutes before the sun went down the grandfather caught a nice keeper bass and had a second one that looked like a keeper, but it got off as it went into the trolling motor while he had it next to the boat. It didn't matter as they were out for fishing fun and would of released it like they did the first keeper.

As the sun was setting we shot to the back where we got a couple of small bass and some more blues on popping plugs in 2 to 3 feet of water with the incoming flow on the flats and were back at the dock by 9:00pm

[CapeMayRay]

Wasn't going to fish tonight but with only a light wind I though I would give it a quick shot to see if I could get a nice bass on the fly where we caught yesterday.

Left the dock at 7:00pm. with just barely enough water to get out of my slip and headed to the inlet to work the incoming tide. Tide was slow in getting started and I started out with some small flies looking for Spanish Mackerel. Only found some small bluefish, catching 6. When the tide picked up I put on some larger bunker flies looking for some bigger bass.

Small blues keep chewing on the bunker flies so I went through a few of them before switching over to a Counterfeit Yanks Assassin (ones I made myself) Right after the sun went down and it got dark I caught my first bass on 350 sinking line. A little 20 1/2 incher.

I got one more 19 incher and missed one trying to get it into the boat. Fished till 9:00pm and headed in.

[CapeMayRay]

With tough tides at sunset and sun rise and them being lower than normal with a light tidal flow I didn't book any trip during the middle of the week and then the weather turned bad when I had trip Friday Night. (Can't win)

Saturday night I didn't have a trip so I decided to go out and do a personal trip. None of my fishing buddies could make it on short notice.

Left the dock at 6:30pm with the tide starting out. With a nice high tide I went straight to the back bay flats to work some of my favorite creek mouths and point breaks. Water in the back was 75 and I worked a number of great spots with perfect tidal set ups and found them dead and I worked them all hard. I got a 18 and a 25 inch striper along with a small blue on a chartreuse popping fly. Only had three hits but hooked all three.


Right before sunset I moved to another flats area and found some fish working on some small bait and caught 3 more small stripers 15 1/2 to 17 inches on one of my smaller steroid rattling gurglers.

Before heading in I tried one last spot were I got 3 more small stripers up to 18 inches that I got on a all black deceiver fly using intermediate line and was back at the dock by 9:30.

I did get 8 bass tonight and should of been happy, but with such good conditions and knowing what the fishing use to be like with those conditions I realized how much the fishing overall has deteriorated.

Something has to be wrong. These spots were perfect set ups at the perfect time of the day. Two years ago and back they would all be hopping with fish and I would catch 15 or 20 fish at just one good spot and they were bigger than all the dinks we seem to get. Anymore they show no signs of life where in past years you would see tons of bait, fish swirling or fish popping on bait. Not one of them showed any signs of life and you have to work your butt off to get a few fish.

In these same locations I use to go back after dark and you would hear fish feeding all the time. Anymore I rarely ever hear even a pop.

Overall the numbers of stripers are definitely declining as the last three years in a row it has gotten worse. Don't know if there is anything that can be done, but it is not a good trend.

[CapeMayRay]

Had a father and his young son out tonight for the sons first saltwater trip. Left the dock at 4:30pm with the tide coming in. Decided to hit the inlet first. I was hoping to find some bluefish action to put the kind into some easy fish. Water looked great with a decent amount of small bait fish the the only fish hitting on it were little 6 inch blues.

Threw the cast net an put a bunch of them in the live well to live line. After working it for a while and missing one decent size blue we headed to the back bay to work the shallow flats.

The move paid off. Had them throwing smack-it's and they started picking up bluefish with most of them being decent size.

We kept moving and would find a striper here and there along with more blues. All the stripers were small, but on the light rods they provided a lot of fun for the dad and sun.


We fished till it got dark and were treated to a beautiful sunset. It looked and felt like fall as the sun set. It also got cool enough that we had to put on sweat shirts to feel comfortable.


They kept 5 blues for dinner and released the rest. As for the live lining. I trided them in the back with a bobber and let it out behing the boat as we moved along. The small blues kept eating up those 6 inch blues. We did have one really nice blue hooked up, maybe a 5 lber that bit off the hook next to the boat. Overall it was fun night for all.