Stripers, blues and tog make December fishing worthwhile. This is a great time to go fishing, just bundle up. Several local captains are still taking charters.
Captain Ray on the Tide Runner agrees. The weather is cold but it’s hot fishing for stripers. Ray says, “This time of year, in small open boats weather is the biggest factor. You have to be extra careful and use common sense as to what days you fish as no fish is worth your life.”
With the water temperatures 45 to 47 degrees, fly and plug fishing for stripers reports have been good. The Inlet rocks, the beach-front and the back-bay all producing good number of stripers using both methods.
They’ve also had some sea herring taken on flies. For fly anglers, Ray recommends sinking lines worked with long slow strips, close to structure, with chartreuse colored flies produced all week. With the water being a bit murky from all the wind, the bright color flies seem to be able to get noticed.
In the back-bay the same flies fished at point breaks, creek mouths, or eddy lines took fish with the same slow strip. In the same areas YoZuri or Rapala swimming plugs worked slowly, produced for spin castors.
“No matter how cold it is, catching a few fish gets the blood flowing and you feel much warmer,” says Ray. With shorter days it is not necessary to fish in the dark as with the lower light the fish aggressively feed during daylight hours. As long as tide is good, the fish will feed. His best trip of the week, a four hour fly trip, produced 15 fish.
Captain Jim McClintock had another great trip aboard the Fins&Grins. “Fish were jumping in the boat,” he says. He is continuing to run open boat or charter with one to 10 passengers for stripers or blackfish, and would even do combo trips if requested. There’s still time to get some fresh stripers for the holidays.
Ron Flemming at Cape May Bait & Tackle reports things a little slow, with more throwback bass than keepers. The Cape May Rips are still holding some quality bass, but the beaches aren’t producing any huge fish that he knew of.
Small blitzes of bass to 24-inches happened at Poverty Beach and around Lighthouse Park Beach. Most of those fish were caught using clam.
As long as the weather cooperates, there’s still a lot of good fishing ahead, with December being one of his best and favorite months for striper fishing.
Watch for news coming out of the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council meetings being held this week. Hot topic: Quotas for Summer Flounder.
Check out SeeMyBigFish.com and be sure to send your fish stories and pictures to Be My Guest reporter. Send info to cmiller@cmcherald.com.
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