What would a vacation be without a fishing trip? Love the beach. Love the boards. Don’t miss an opportunity to get out fishing. We have too many wonderful charter, party, and boat rental marinas, not to spend a day on the water.
The Stray Cat with Captain Mike O’Neill, Sea View Harbor Marina, had a full week of great action. He tells me, “All fishing is going full steam ahead. Bottom fishing has improved with sea bass catches and ling. The trolling action on blues only got better with a mix of Oceanic Bonito; the largest weighed in at 4.6-pounds.” A 10 foot thresher crashed the hooked blue fish and tangled up three of the trolling lines. All the fish were full of butter fish and sardines.
Inshore the fluke fishing started on the Stone Beds and Coral Bottom, Not many keepers, But water temps got the flatties active. He found a few blues in the area also.
Grassy Sound Marina reports weakfish in Grassy Sound under the North Wildwood bridge. Ed Hughes, Grassy Sound, fishing from his kayak caught a 23 ¾ inch, 3.9-pound weakie. He was fishing underneath the N. Wildwood bridge at the bottom of the incoming tide using Chartreuse Gulp and a white bucktail. Len Guthrie, Green Creek, caught an 18 ½-inch flounder on pearl white Gulp at the mouth of Beach Creek during outgoing tide.
John Sweigart, Elizathethtown, Pa., fishing on a rental boat just south of the N. Wildwood bridge at the top of the tide using minnows, caught a 20-inch, 2.66-pound flounder.
The Roberts brothers, Woolwich Twp., caught five keeper flounder on pearl white Gulp. They were fishing the incoming tide at Great Flat Thorofare. Mike Hassell, Wallingford, Pa. caught a 23 ¾-inch, 4.1-pound flounder in Turtle Creek. He was using minnows at the top of the tide on a rental boat.
Sterling Harbor reports flounder fishing in the back-bays is good with plenty of fish, but it’s tougher to find keepers, as the fish are getting ready to make their move out the inlets with the warm water temps. Joe Brennan broke in his new Hobie Mirage Pro Angler Kayak with a 2-pound 5-ounce flounder caught on a Gulp! Shrimp.
Good news on the ocean side is that plenty of flounder are being caught at Reef Site 11 and the Old Grounds. When the drift is right, there are plenty of nice fish to be caught. Some keeper sea bass and a few flounder, mostly throwbacks are being caught at the Cape May Reef, and should be heating up just in time for the 18th Annual Duke of Fluke Tournament, which will be held on July 16th this year.
Offshore, sharking remains good. Capt. Rob Ferrante checked in with a 162-pound Mako shark for angler Curtis O’Briant of Villas. The fish was caught caught on the 20 Fathom line. Further Offshore, some boats reported hot tuna bites while trolling at Massey’s Canyon and the Wilmington Canyons.
Captain Ray chimes in with a super week for fly and light tackle anglers. Stripers are still his main target for fly and light tackle anglers. For fly anglers, clousers and large deceiver flies worked for stripers along the rock jetties. In the back bay medium size clousers and deceivers fished on intermediate lines did the job. He found stripers chasing spearing on the surface along sod bank and a Chartreuse Steroid Gurgler was catching on almost every cast till the blitz action stopped. They had one keeper size weakfish that took a smaller deceiver along the inlet rocks, which was released.
For the spin anglers, swimming plugs, rubbers swimming baits and jig heads with gulp caught stripers, fluke, and bluefish. In the back areas smack-it-jr popping plugs were the best bet for catching stripers, providing spectacular surface strikes.
If you are looking to go out front head towards the TI Reef, say the folks at Pier 88, Sea Isle City, you’ll be satisfied. Seven great flukes were caught one day, all measuring 20+ inches. Back-bay is still seeing striper action and some boats had nice flounder at the fillet table mostly caught on Gulp, Mini’s and a bucktail.
Capt. John Sowerby and his Hooked Up II, South Jersey Marina, steamed off to the Spencer Canyon for a tuna trolling trip. No one was more surprised than the charter group, when a large white marlin attacked the tuna lure. After 45 minutes of an acrobatic display of jumping, flying and spinning, the marlin surrendered. The crew carefully pulled it on board for a photo-op and a few hugs. Then they placed it back into the ocean and released it.
The trip accomplished its original mission by taking a total of five yellow-fin tuna and a Mahi-dolphin to round out the experience. Although it’s a little early in the season for this activity, the warm waters are holding these species right where we want them. Join in on this opportunity by chartering a boat…if not now, when?
Sea Star III, 4-10 p.m. drumfish trip is over so it will be 9 a.m.- 3 p.m. trip for the rest of summer.
Send your fishing reports and pictures to cmiller@cmcherald.com
Wildwood Crest – Regarding transparency in CMC; they need to look to Atlantic County a few miles up the road. Their meetings start at 4pm and citizens can remote in from the County website and listen or even raise an…
