Augustine Beach is an unincorporated community in New Castle County, Delaware. Augustine Beach is located on the west bank of the Delaware River along Delaware Route 9 (St. Augustine Road) northeast of Odessa, just below Port Penn, directly across from Salem I nuclear power plant. There is a state boat ramp there and fishing along the bay “beach” You can fish at the beach in front of the parking lot or walk to the beach on the other side of the jetty near the boat ramp. You can also fish the jetty near the boat ramp. The ramp is better at high tide and is occasionally dredged by the state of Delaware to keep it usable for recreational anglers and boaters.
This is also a popular place to launch kayaks and fish the edges of the Delaware Bay. Just be careful of the fast currents, when the tide is really moving. Many beach goers like to wade into the water to cool off. This is also a popular bird watching place with a variety of species. The panoramic views make for great photographs. Even the cooling tower from Salem I power plant can make for some picturesque scenes.
You can catch a variety of fish species at Augustine beach. The striped bass migrate past Augustine beach and there are is year around short striped bass action. That action picks up in the fall and spring during the seasonal striped bass migrations. Lures such as bucktails, swim shads, rattle traps, and jigs with soft plastics work for striped bass in this area of the upper Delaware bay but bunker chunks and bloodworms are the popular baits. Bloodworms are the preferred bait for the spring striped bass action, even the migratory bass. Bunker chunks is the other way to go they bass are up there feeding on the bunker schools. The large migratory bass are a popular catch near Augustine beach, mostly from boats but they come close to shore on occasion.
There is also plenty of white perch, croaker, spot, carp, and channel catfish around Augustine beach when they are in season and the salt line is that high up the river. There are times in the summer flounder have been caught that far up. Anglers will use surf rods in sand spikes or just regular rods to bait up top and bottom rigs and toss them out there just like in the surf. A regular short rod works good for casting lures or rigs. There isn’t a lot of wave action like the lower bay, except for the boat and ship wakes. Augustine beach does get blow out tides and can be pretty nautical on a very windy day. You can see some seriously big ships as they move up and down the Delaware Bay to and from the northern ports of Wilmington and Philadelphia. The C&D canal is not much farther north and ships use that to cross into the Chesapeake bay or back to the Delaware Bay at Reedy Point. Another good fishing spot along route 9.
There are few bridges above and below Augustine beach that the locals fish, and catch the same types of fish that can be caught at Augustine Beach. Just be careful of traffic and some of these bridges during an extreme high tide will have water on the road before them. or across the cause ways over waterways.