The Fishing Line: All we need is sun

It’s all about the weather…again. Despite the dreary rain, the news is very good when folks do get out. Add to this the tournament season, and there’s plenty of reason to Go Fish.
Captain Ray on Tide Runner out of Cape May, had a good week with stripers and weakfish providing the bulk of the action. Fly fishing was the most effective for catching the most fish.
Stripers and blues were taken along the inlet rocks and weakfish in the 14 to 17 inch range plus Atlantic sea herring were caught on the beachfront.
Middle of the night fishing can be good. In the back bay at night stripers were taking popping flies in shallow water and a nice tide runner weakfish was lost when the chartreuse/white deceiver fly pulled half way through the fight.
Captain Ray did a middle of the night fishing trip with a fly fishing buddy from 10:30 p.m. to 2:30 am. They fished the back bay and caught 16 stripers and some sea herring, using small clousers, surf candies and small spearing flies on floating and sinking lines.
Bill (bucktail willie) Shillingford fishing out of Whale Creek Marina continue to find legal flounder up to 22 inches. He reports lots of small fish around and if you work through them, some decent size fish are to be had. Gulp shrimp and mackerel produced the largest fish.
Willie also had a decent week on striped bass up to 32 inches; early morning bite for most part on surface poppers and live eels.
Grassy Sound Marina reported fish caught in abundance in the backbay. Flounder were caught on both tides with a variety of baits. Minnows are scarce but the fish are taking mackerel, squid, and Gulp baits. Kingfish were caught using minnows off the Grassy Sound Fishing Pier along with some nice stripers.
John Bondiskey, Oceanview, limited out for the first time this season keeping six flounder to 22 inches using Gulp baits in Turtle Creek at both tides.
Carol and Jim Boyle, National Park, had four keeper flounder to 24 inches using squid at the top of the outgoing tide near the Stone Harbor toll bridge.
Len Guthrie (Cape Taxidermy) and Walt Belles, Rio Grande caught 25 stripers; four keepers to 34 inches on clam behind West Wildwood.
Steve Barnhart, Baltimore, Md. caught four flounder to 23 inches on minnows and Aqua Clear pearl rigs in Turtle Creek and 10-year-old Justin Sigler, Hackettstown, caught his first keeper flounder on the Fishing Pier at the top of the tide using minnows.
The Grassy Sound area has been hot for a few weeks now.
Captain Fred at Harbor View reports plenty of keeper flounder showing up and some keeper sea bass still in the reefs. Stripers are in the back bays and are responding to fresh clam. Keeper weakfish have been brought in from around the Cape May jetties. Croakers have been found in the Delaware Bay.
The Miss Chris Charters, Cape May, report good fluke fishing and some limit catches. Fish are weighing in up to 6-pounds.
Drum fish are coming in in the 62-75-pound range. Vincent Marino of Pennsauken, 12 years old, caught a beautiful 75-pound drum on a recent trip.
Schmedley Charters, The Big Game, South Jersey Marina took Dave Noetzel Group out for sharks and landed four nice blue sharks in the 120-140-pound range, and lost a big thresher. The water temp was around 63 degrees with seas fairly calm.
The flounder fishing in the bay has been fairly decent, with a 6 or 7 to 1 keeper ratio, plenty of action, though. The reef also has steady action with sea bass, and a lot of throwbacks.
Captain Joe has seen and heard of some blue fin tuna all though the area and he is putting together a group for the Mid-Atlantic Tuna Tournament, July 16-18. Anyone interested call 609-456 0857 or email captjpsr@aol.com.
Captain Jim, Starlight Fleet, Wildwood Crest, reports that when the weather allowed them to get out, they managed sea bass catches on both the four-hour and six-hour trips.
The big fish went to Nicholas Spinosa of Cape May with a 4-pound flounder. Andrew Ziccardi, Wildwood Crest, weighed in his biggest sea bass at 3-pounds 4-ounces, and Christopher Kanya, Rio Grande, had several blues weighing up to 6.5 pounds. High hook for the week was Sammy Stroud of Malvern, Pa., who went home with 18 keeper sea bass.
The Royal Flush with Captain John Royles is sailing two trips a day, 8a.m.-noon and 1-5 pm., and a night trip from 7-11 p.m. They are currently catching plenty of seabass on all trips with some throwback flounder and small blues.
The Ocean City Tuna and Marlin Club announced their tournament results: 298-pound thresher for Barry Zeldin on One More Drift; 182-pound Mako for George Robinson on the Polarizer and 305.5-pound thresher for Mike Busa on the Black & Blue. The overall winner was One More Drift with Barry Zeldin.
South Jersey Marina held its 29th Annual Shark Tournament on June 12 -13 with 144 boats competing for a share of the total purse of $298,670.
Results: Heaviest Shark, Fat Cat, 590-pounds; heaviest Mako, 100 Proof, 232-pounds; heaviest Blue, Re Joyce, 265-pounds. For more details and pictures, go to southjerseytournaments.com
Mark your calendar: Duke of Fluke Tournament, July 11, Sterling Harbor Marins, 609-729-1425 or sterlingharbor@comcast,net.
July 15-18, Mid-Atlantic Tuna Tournament, South Jersey Marina, southjerseymarina.com.
All photos submitted to this column appear online at SeeMyBigFish.com. Be sure to send your fish stories and photos to cmiller@cmcherald.com. This column appears first online at capemaycountyherald.com