The Fishing Line: Fall Tourneys

The stripers are here! The stripers are here.
Big striped bass moved into the Delaware Bay late in the week, with numerous reports of 30 to 50 pound fish being caught according to Sterling Harbor. Their pictures are worth a thousand words.
The Cape May Rips were quiet with some stripers caught while trolling under birdplays off the beaches. Rob Ferrante of Pittsgrove, had four nice Bass up to 22 pounds while trolling Mann Stretch 25’s under the birdplay’s off of Ocean City on his boat “Shming” out of Wildwood. In the back bays schoolie stripers are hitting on clam around bridges and sod banks.
Togging remains good around the jetties, bridges and inshore wrecks and is getting better every day. Crabby Jack says the crabbing is “petering off” and gives the crabbing two claws this week.
Captain Ray reports that with the water temperatures still above normal and conditions very windy, he had to work super hard for the stripers they caught. With the water being a bit brown for all the wind, best fly fishing action was in the back bay waters were it was a little cleaner.
Deceiver and clouser flies fished on sinking or intermediate lines produced best. Most of the fish caught were small, but hopefully more and better size fish will be moving in with each new day. The next two months should see our best striper action of the year.
Freshwater fishing can’t be overlooked this time of the year. On the days when it was too windy to fish in saltwater, Ray took off to some South Jersey lakes to catch fish on the fly. Pickerel and largemouth bass seemed to readily take orange/yellow Mickey Finn flies (worked fast for the pickerel and short erratic strips for the largemouth) and bluegills and crappie seemed to eat up small bug patterns.
No reason to stay home. The fishing is picking up again.
Send your fish stories and photos to cmiller@cmcherald.com.