With fishing in full swing, the pictures are pouring in. Send your catch in and tell your fish story. Sterling Harbor reports an occasional nice striper being caught from the North Wildwood, Wildwood Crest and Cape May beaches. In the back-bays, flounder continue to be caught, however there seems to be fewer keepers.
On the offshore scene, sea bass are on the wrecks along with some cod. Throwback flounder are starting to show up at the reef and Old Ground areas. Shark fishing is as good as it has been in years, with many boats reporting several shots at Mako’s.
Crabby Jack gives the crabbing 3.5 claws this week. He says there are plenty of crabs, you just need to pick through for the keepers.
Grassy Sound Marina reports the back-bay produced some nice flounder catches but stripers have been short for the most part. Lots of success on Gulp, chartreuse, pearl white, and emerald shiner.
T.J. Moore, Egg Harbor Twp, caught a 4.6-pound flounder in Turtle Creek incoming tide on minnows. Jim Zawislak, Elverson, Pa., fishing on a rental boat caught 20 throwbacks with a 19 ½-inch keeper flounder. He was fishing incoming tide with 4-inch pearl white swim mullet Gulp in Turtle Creek. John Brescia, 7, N. Wildwood caught a 19-inch flounder in the mouth of Beach Creek during incoming tide on Gulp with a jig head. He also caught a 40-pound striper two weeks ago on bunker spoon.
StrayCat had a supper day with a 60 cod fish a person; non-stop action. Cod, jumbo sea bass and ling. The boat ran 22 miles and fished the 20 Fathom line. They’re slated for deep water and shark trips and runs to the canyon, too.
Captain Ray had another good week of fishing. The weather co-operated as well as the fish. Stripers, bluefish, and sea herring provided great action for fly and spin anglers again. In the inlet and beach front stripers provided the most action using large clouser and deceiver patterns and the sea herring preferred small jiggie flies.
In the back bay they were treated to the first good signs of bait activity. Three evenings they found bass chasing spearing up against sod banks. Ray says it was the best bait activity that he had seen in the back in a long time.
The key to catching was to get your fly or plug within a foot of the bank as the fish were feeding one to three feet from shore. Ray even got out on a night personal trip and caught 10 bass on popping flies and floating line.
This week we welcome Kristy at Pier 88 Marina, Sea Isle City. She’s seeing flounder caught in the back-bays in warmer water. Many shorts but lots of keepers too with some nice size. Minnows seeing the most action followed up by Gulp! The charter boat First Fish Adventures that leaves from Pier 88 Marina had 14 keepers for the week. They also saw striper action in the back-bays on fresh clam.
Send your reports and pictures to cmiller@cmcherald.com. All pictures submitted are posted online at www.capemaycountyherald.com.
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