Slammer Blues Hit The Surf And Tautog On The Move

 

bluefish, delaware, sussex county, conquest beach, yellow eyed devil, mullet chunks
Mark Parrish with is bluefish at Conquest beach on Sunday

Despite the insane weather this weekend people still got out and fished.  Hopefully everyone enjoyed having 4 seasons in one Saturday afternoon.  Sunday was a nice day and the wind finally laid  down enough that it was tolerable.  Besides it is the weekend that is not going to stop many from getting out there.  We keep hearing about bluefish but finally saw one.  Mark Parrish and his family were on Conquest Beach when a nice slammer sized bluefish hit his mullet rig.  ” Using mullet-about 3:30 PM today (Sunday). Still waiting on the rest of his (the bluefish) family members to show up!! We started at Conquest and worked south.  Seems to have been a random catch as I didn’t have any hits all day.  I had 4 rods out-bunker, fish bites, mullet, sand flea. Just though I would cover the bases! ”   Random or not it is great to see something besides a twelve-inch striped bass.  There have been some nice short stripers from the surf.  Mostly the bigger ones are south of Cape Henlopen.  The fish up there are all averaging twelve inches but a few larger ones have been caught.  Bloodworms have been the best baits for the smaller bass, but big bass are hitting bloods too, especially up north on the Delaware bay.  The water is cleaner on the southern beaches than the northern beaches the line seems to be around Rehoboth Beach.

 

tautog, green crab, blackfish, white chin, delaware, sussex county, indian river inlet,
Kyoung S. Kim with a nice tautog from the Indian River Inlet

The other hot fishing news is tautog are finally at the Indian River Inlet.  Kyoung S. Kim was fishing the inlet in those heavy winds on Sunday.  He and his buddies managed 4 nice keeper tautog on green crabs.  He said a few other folks manged to land some nice fish.  Tautog season lasts until May 11th with a limit of three fish per angler each day.  I saw some sand flea husks in the surf yesterday so they are still in the sand but you have to dig deep. Otherwise a few shops have green crabs, Old Inlet and the Oceanic Pier, and Rick’s has box crabs.  The charters are working on going out and Katydid got out before the weather turned last week, and loaded the box with some nice tautog, one was 9.9 pounds.  The weather this week is going to get windier and windier.  Yesterday was the best day we have seen in a while.  At least the water temperatures bounced back to the low fifties after that cold snap.  Thursday waves will kick up to five feet and increase size into Friday.  Get it in early this week, it will be better conditions.

 

striped bass, delaware river, upperdelaware bay, new castle county, kent county, rockfish, linesider,
Jennifer .. Caught and released today on the DE River in PA…..using bloodworms…..38 inches, 22 inch girth…. Approximately 23lbs……my biggest striper!!!
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The Chesapeake is on fire with spawning migratory bass.  The Delaware Bay up north is the same and migratory bass are moving into the Delaware bay.  Spawning season for Delaware lasts until May 31st.  The migratory bass in the Chesapeake will spawn and hang out for a while, then push north hopefully up our coastline.  You will have a few different chances at catching large bass.  Hopefully some migratory bass will come close to shore, the winds will keep people away from the waters and off the beaches.   It is right snotty for a boat ride today.  There is a small craft advisory until Tuesday afternoon.  The fish like that rough water, but it is not good on boaters.   Wednesday we will shift to Northeast winds.  That may help push some fish to the coast line.  At least we had a decent day this weekend and a few this week to get out there and wet a line.  Because you can’t catch, if you aren’t fishing, and putting in the time.  The Cape Henlopen pier is coming along and the crews have almost half the deck installed.  looking forward to fishing that in May.

 

Fish On!!

Rich King

Bugs are coming get your Gneux More Gnaughty Gnat spray now and keep them away.  Event the black marsh flies.  Take your DFM level to zero!

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