Fishing Reports Cape May June 16th to 30th

[CapeMayRay]

Found it was cloudy and overcast and decided to do a quick trip on the start of the out going tide. Wanted to fish where we caught and missed a weakie last night.

Got to the boat around 10:00 a.m. and just as I left the dock the sky started to clear and we had bright sun. (kiss of death for back bay fly fishing)

With the tide just starting to go out, I was speeding along the back flats to get to the weakfish spot when I noticed 6 herons sitting on the edge of the sod banks, right where he saw and caught some bass last night.

Stopped to give it a shot and shortly nailed a 21 inch striper on a super old Enrico Puglisi fly in super bright light around 10:15. It is about 5 years old the hook is a bit rusted. seen it's better days and has caught a lot of fish. Decided to use it as the water was very clear and you could see all the way to the bottom in 5 feet of water.

Stuck around and worked it for about an hour catching one more 22 in bass and seeing a couple of swirls.

Finally got over to where we caught last night and worked that area for about an hour. Switched to pink/white deceiver and got one hit and landed a 20 inch blue.

With the sun hot and high I decided to call it a morning. On the way back to the dock I tried one last point that is usually good at night. Water there was super clear and not looking good. I moved off the point into deeper murkier water and decided I would take one drift and then go home.

About half way through the drift at 12:00 and in brightest sun of the day I caught a 23 3/4 inch striper on the Puglisi fly.


Here are two pictures of the fly. The first you can see it is a bit beat. I bought it when I was down in Florida and that is why it has stripes like a sheepshead.

The Second is a picture of what it looks like in the water. It may be beat and old, but it still looks like a fish when in the water.

Worked the area for another half hour, hoping to pull another bass out of the hat but no luck. Came back in the heat of the day, with tons of boat traffic. Got to keep reminding myself why I do not fish during the day.

Decent morning under less than idea conditions.

[CapeMayRay]

Wasn't going to fish tonight as I have an Early morning charter tomorrow, but with the heat and staying in all day I felt like I had to take a fathers day trip especially since my since I was home alone and no dinner restrictions.

Left the dock at 6:30 p.m. with the tide low and starting to flood. Went straight to the beach front to try for weakies. On the way there I found a large school of bunker. Put on a huge 9 inch bunker fly and heavy sinking and worked the school letting my big fly sink to the bottom. There was another guy live lining bunker under them and he was getting nothing too.

Worked up close to the beach and fishing was tough. One herring and one very small blue on an orange/yellow clouser on 400 grain line.

At the inlet there were all the small blues you wanted and there looked to be a dozen boats working them with birds diving all around.

Decide to shoot to the back and try where we hooked those weakies the other day. There was enough water for me to get back there and after a half hour of no strikes the fish showed up. Only stripers but I caught three fish to 21 inches in short order chart/yellow deceivers and saw some swirls. Put a new black balsa popping fly that someone on another web-site gave me to try and got one on the 2nd cast. Caught two more on it up to 23 inches.


Around 8:15 the fish would only swirl behind it and kept missing it. Could not figure what it was. Might of just been the change of light. Switched to bunker fly and got three more.

Around 9:00 p.m. the action stopped and I fished till 9:30 with out a hit and headed home.

A nice fathers day treat, on a nice night with no boat traffic. One of the better action nights.

[CapeMayRay]

Left the dock at 5:00 a.m. with a one person fly charter from Montana. He does a lot of fly fishing there and had done some salt water fly fishing in Fla. and else where.

Worked the jetty rocks on the begining of the incoming tide. 450 sinking line with Chart/white decievers caught 4 small bass to 22 inches.

Went into the beach front area and switiched to yellow/white clousers and got a 20 and 17 1/2 inch weakie, and 3 more small stripers.

On the way in there was some bird play at the inlet and got two blues.

With the sun getting high we tried one point in the back bay before heading in and got more striper on the same Paglisi fly that caught the other day.

[CapeMayRay]

No fly fishing tonight but had a plug charter out. Left the dock at 5:00 p.m. which was just about dead low. Wanted to work the inlet with no water in the back bay. Headed out the inlet with a strong east wind blowing and worked outside of the south jetty.

Picked away at blues and two stripers till the tide came up a bit. Around 7:00 we headed to the back to work flats and creeks. Switched from swimming plugs to smack-it-jr popping plugs. As the water started clearing up we could see some real tiny bait and some fish feeding along the edges of the sod banks and grass areas.

Had about an hour and a half of good top water action. Lots of swirlers, a good number of hits and missed and some slam dunk strikes and hook ups. With a couple of the best bass inches under keeper side.

last 1/2 hour we tried another location that has been hot, but the snot grass was over whelming.

First stripers for client and first time he ever used a surface plug. Were back at the dock by 9:00.

Was very warm this morning but very cool tonight. With the wind off the ocean it cooled down into the low 60's and felt like a fall evening.

[Dave Sikorski]

And the great reports continue.

Those smack-it juniors are great little plugs.

Can't beat a topwater bite either!

Keep it up Ray....Happy belated Father's Day!

-D

[CapeMayRay]

Nice thing is most of the fish I catch and most of my charters we release, to insuring that they will be around. With all the fish we have caught so far this year there have only been about 3 in total that took a hook deep and were bleeding a bit.

We were fishing all alone last night with no boats anywhere and my charter said how come there are not a lot of others out fishing with it being so good.

Told him that everyone wants a big boat to go offshore, in Delaware Bay or with cabins etc. and that you can't fish those in 2 to 4 foot of water. That without and electric motor they are all afraid of spending the night high and dry when the tide goes out.

Sometimes you wonder how the fish have a chance. On Saturday there must of been 100 boats fishing for fluke in the inland water way with about 200 boats zipping by. It looked like zoo city! That was only one small section and they are all meat fishing.

[CapeMayRay]

Another father and son non fly charter tonight. Left the dock at 5:00 p.m. with the last of the out going tide. First two hours were brutal. Tried the north jetty with nice clean water, but no strikes.

Tried the south jetty with no strikes. Next worked the beach front. With Low tide usually being the best time for fishing there we worked it for an hour with only one strike and a missed fish. Everything looked perfect but no fish.

Worked the outside of the south jetty and finally picked up a decent blue as we neared the tip. (where we tried earlier with no luck) Decided to work it for a bit and it paid off. The rest of evening we slammed stripers and blues with a couple of times having multiple hook ups. Young son caught his first striper ever on a Rapala swimming plug.

Looking around the end of the jetty I saw a big school of bunker coming our way. Told the father to foul hook a bunker and let it drop under the shool. (he looked at me like, Yea right) He had it down for about 5 minutes while his son cast and all of a sudden the 10 lb test line screamed off the reel and went deep.


After about 15 minutes of max pressure and using the boat like you would for a tuna we used the angle to pull the fish up to the surface and we saw it. We were expecting a 40 lb plus bass but found we had a 6 foot brown shark with an attitude.


Bunker shcool stayed outside the inlet all night. We ended the night on a high note with 17 stripers to 25 inches and 12 blues losing one plug to blues and one to the shark.

[CapeMayRay]

This morning I had a fly charter with his young neice. They fish with me every year when they are down for vacation. It was a tough tough morning.

Left the dock at 5:00 a.m. and worked the inlet and beach front to death. Conditions looked great except the water was super clean. Could see bottom at the end of the Rock Jetty in about 15 feet of water.

We only caught 4 blues and had 5 other strikes that we missed.

They have had pretty good trips in the past, but today it was just plain slow. Some days you just can't do it. I tried everything and nothing seemed to work. Guess that is why they call it fishing.

[jmercer]

capemayray,
thanks for all your posts. Keeps us folks behind a desk all day to look forward to the weekends.

jeremy

[CapeMayRay]

Took a little bit of a break this past weekend. Didn't have charters scheduled and had company down for the weekend that wasn't into fishing. With warm weather and boat traffic and good tides in the midddle of the night I just hung loose.

Tough morning. Charter wanted to leave the dock at 8:00 a.m. which is close to when I usually come in but they had a drive to get here. With no casting skills and bright light I decided to use clam bellies and clam. Can usually get stripers and bluefish action combined.

This morning it was mostly sand sharks and a some small stripers up to 22 inches. We had a good tide but just wasn't happening.

Made a move to the inlet hoping for some bird activity or blues around the rocks. Found some pods of bunker and decided to foul hook some and live line them under the pods. Caught one brown shark and the bigger one close to the boat but he bit off the line.

Tried a drift down the beach front chumming and drifting baits and had one more brown shark and two sand sharks.

Were back at the dock by noon and it was hot and sticky. Give me the darkness and the coolness of early morning or night. I felt like I did two trips and then all the washing of the bait and chum off the boat, I will take fly fishing any day.

They were happy with the action but I expected better fishing. Water is still very clean. We could see way down into the bunker schools and see the fish down deep.