Sterling Harbor reports drumfish biting in the Delaware Bay on both the New Jersey and Delaware sides. Drum and stripers are being caught from the North Wildwood, Wildwood Crest and Cape May beaches on clam bait. Flounder are being caught in the back- bays behind the Wildwoods, Stone Harbor and Avalon. Schoolie stripers with an occasional keeper are being caught in the back-bays using clam bellies or whole clam for bait.
Crabby Jack gives the crabbing 2.5 Claws again this week and says, the crabs are around but they are on the smaller side right now.
The Grassy Sound Pier produced bluefish, flounder, and a few stripers to 28-inches. Gary Kubelczik, Del Haven caught a 28-inch striper fishing the incoming tide on the pier with fresh bunker and Captain Lew Haubois, Rio Grande, was catching flounder on minnows in Turtle Creek at the top of the tide.
The McCullough’s, Southampton, Pa. had their first catch on their new Carolina Skiff, a 20-inch bluefish during incoming tide on squid and minnow near the Grassy Sound bridge.
Drew Cowan, Court House, was catching stripers at Shooting Island on bombers during incoming tide. (We’ll be getting some more great reports from Drew before he heads off to the Navy.)
Joe Snyder, Tamaqua, Pa. caught a 21-inch flounder on minnows and squid and a 30-inch striper using clam under the North Wildwood bridge, outgoing tide.
According to Captain Ray, it was pretty good week fishing for both fly and plug anglers with all the action around the inlet rocks or in the ocean. Clouser flies worked great for stripers, with small chartreuse flies with some flash working best for Atlantic Sea Herring. It was a late start for bluefish this year, but they invaded in full force chomping off there fair share of flies and hitting plugs that looked like a bait fish.
They were in thick with some nicer sized ones mixed in and both fly and plug anglers were getting a mix of stripers, bluefish and sea herring on each of Ray’s charter trips. Tim Thorton of New York and his wife had a mixed bag of fish using Yozuri Mag Darters and Rapala plugs releasing all their fish including a 29 1/2 inch striper.
NEWS: The NJDEP Division of Fish and Wildlife has rescheduled the deployment of 6000 cubic yards of demolition concrete on the Great Egg Reef to May 27. Commercial fishers who set lobster and fish pots in the area of deployment should remove their gear or risk having it destroyed. The target date for deployment is subject to weather and sea conditions. For details visit http://www.njfishandwildlife.com/news/2011/reefconcrete5-11.htm
Welcome to Stray Cat Charters, Ocean City. They’re running charters and in the off season open boat. Check out www.straycatsportfishing.com. (Capt. Mike O’Neill 391-9630)
Send your fishing reports and pictures to cmiller@cmcherald.com
North Cape May – Another shout out to Officer Bohn, the school resource officer at LCMR. I admire his hard work and devotion to the students and staff as I see him every morning and afternoon, snow, wind , sleet or…
