Lots of smiles on the faces of anglers these days. Beautiful weather plus fish equals a perfect day.
Sterling Harbor reports back-bay fluke fishing remains good; more throwbacks showing up but still quite a few fish caught in the 2 to 4-pound range. Scott Pierce of Drexel Hill, Pa, and Sue and Ken Smith of Philadelphia, Pa., had a nice catch of flounder up to 22 inches while fishing on their Hobie Mirage Outback Kayaks.
Schoolie stripers have been caught in the back-bays using surface plugs like Zara Spooks, MirrOLures, and the like. Evenings around dusk have been best. On the surf scene, the excellent striped bass and drumfish catches have slowed down, but there are still some nice stripers to be had. John Baker of Court House, weighed in a 34-pound bass measuring 47-inches that took a fresh clam from the North Wildwood surf.
The Delaware Bay drumfish bite is on and should be getting better over the next couple of weeks. Offshore shark fishing is getting ready to take off and anglers reported blue sharks and plenty of bluefish around the boats. Out at the reef the sea bass season kicked off with reports of in the 3 to 4-pound range.
Grassy Sound Channel continues to produce lots of flounder, short stripers and blues. Pearl white Gulp is a hot color for flounder. Tony D’Adamo, Villas, caught six short stripers on the incoming tide on clams with one keeper at 29-inches on mackerel off the fishing pier.
Pat Hanratty, Parksburg, Pa. fishing on the pier caught four flounder with one keeper at 21-inches, 3.17-pounds. He was using pearl white Gulp during outgoing tide. John Robinson, Court House, caught 15 flounder with three keepers to 24-inches on minnows and squid drifting near the marina. Frankie Sandefur, Philadelphia, caught six short stripers and one bluefish from the pier using clam during incoming tide.
Cheryl and Robert Dehaven, Burlington, fishing from a rental boat, caught two keeper flounder to 20-inches using minnows and pearl white Gulp during incoming tide in Turtle Creek and Matt Hamer, Dennisville, fishing the outgoing tide in Turtle Creek caught one keeper at 20-inches on minnows and squid.
Captain Ray is having a great time with stripers and bluefish providing great action for both fly and plug anglers with the striper bite sometimes stronger than the blue fish bite. Ray says the best fishing was around the inlet or just outside the surf line in the shallow water right behind where the surf breaks onto the beach. Most of the stripers were 16 to 26 inches with a few keepers.
They were also catching sea herring in the 15 to 16-inch size on small flies with flash. They give a nice fight, jump like baby tarpon and when stripped and salted, they make great bait for fluke and stripers. Ray did try for one hour in the back-bay using clam and clam bellies for chum but he could not keep the sand sharks away. They were in so thick we caught about 30 in the one hour with a few close to 4 feet. When they couldn’t take it anymore, they went back plug fishing.
Captain Mike O’Neill, fished the Stray Cat all weekend with several trips producing sea bass and ling up to 4-pounds. Next week the boat will fish for shark and tuna along the 20 fathom curve. (391-9630)
South Jersey Marina is again sending in reports, thanks to Charlie Langan. Capt. John Gallagher aboard Raging Bull ran south to a lump just north of the Washington Canyon and after almost winning the battle with his first white marlin of the season, he caught 11 yellowfin tuna; released six and kept five. Charlie can arrange charters onshore or off, 884-3800.
NEWS: The NJDEP Division of Fish and Wildlife has confirmed that a Grass Carp caught by James Dempsey, Jr of Ewing on May 12 is officially a new state record. The huge fish was taken from Curlis Lake in Mercer County and weighed an astounding 55-pounds 8-ounces, surpassing the previous record set in 2008 by Homer Tye by one pound, one ounce; also from Curlis Lake. For more information and a photo of the monster fish, visit http://www.njfishandwildlife.com/news/2011/recgrasscarp11.htm
Send your reports and pictures to cmiller@cmcherald.com. All pictures submitted are posted online at www.capemaycountyherald.com.
Cape May – Last week I witnessed a woman helping a man who seemed to be having difficulty getting up in the water. the next thing I saw was she also was injured. My Uber ride was there to take me to the…
