Flounder pounding is picking up

The past few days the fishing has been great regardless of the crazy weather.  Flounder pounding is picking up and the size limit will change tomorrow to 17 inches four per person and no season.  The Lewes Canal, Roosevelt Inlet, Cape Henlopen Pier, Massey’s Landing, Delaware bay, out front, and back bays have been producing decent keepers.  Minnows, chartreuse gulp, and yellow gulp for deeper waters have been the best baits.  Spot kingfish, and croakers have been thick in the surf on most beaches.  The kingfish have been rather large, the best baits have been bloodworms, sand fleas (dug from the surf), clam, fishbites bloodworms, and squid.  The croaker have been really thick on the Delaware Bay beaches at Broadkill Beach.  A few puffers are still in the surf and back bays, as well as skates, dogfish, and rays on the beach.  Many toothy sharks are showing up as well, most of them are the prohibited species, but a few black tips have been caught.  The trout or weakfish are in large numbers as well, mostly on bay beaches and many have been the little spikes.  Nice to see them making a come back, the largest I saw this week was 23 inches.  Same baits as croaker and kings as well as swim shads, spoons, and plastics on jig heads.  The striper bite is slowing down some what with a few keepers here and there.  I met an angler on Saturday, Guy Cage, whom is a recently retired school teacher.  This was the first time in ten years he has been able to get down here to fish for striped bass. He caught a nice thirty three inch keeper at the Indian River inlet on a white bucktail with a white worm.  He hasn’t been able to get down here to fish the striped bass runs due to coaching sports.  He said now that he is retired, he hopes to get out there more and fish.  I had a great time chatting with him, it was nice to see someone fish for the first time in a while, and do some catching, he certainly was excited.  Indian River Inlet was hot all weekend for bluefish and shad at certain times.  The bite would be heavy with nice sized fish and then shut down.  Bucktails and spoons were my choice and speck rigs or darts for the shad.  It was a good time out there this weekend, and I am looking forward to an interesting week fishing.

Last week I attended the Millsboro Middle School Healthfair as a vendor on fishing safety.  I met a lot of kids that fish, several that were interested, and I was excited to hear them share their stories.  Great to see that kids are still fishing, and I hope we can get more out there this year.  The future of fishing, or anything for that matter relies on the younger generations being more involved.  The best story that totally floored me was a young lady that told me about noodling for catfish with her uncle.  I was blown away that someone that young would like the idea of grabbing catfish out of a hole in a mud bank.  Something I have yet to try, not to keen on the idea of pulling catfish out of muddy waters.  I know a lot of folks that had their kids out this weekend, and they all had a blast catching fish.  Mikey Williamson had his daughter Miss Lilah out there and she was catching spot on her princess pole.  Great to hear those stories.  Saturday I attended the Bay Cleanup hosted by The Center for the Inland Bays, DNREC, and the Lions Club at Massey’s Landing.  Bucktail Bob, Rob Fullerton, and I loaded a boat with at least 200 pounds of trash to the point we barely fit in the boat.  We combed the marshes along route 1 and then Burton’s Island.  We even went behind a few folks that said they covered an area, found a good seventy five pounds of trash, many boards, and had to yank Rob out of some knee deep mud.  I found two live shotgun shells,  three Titleist golf balls, and two golf tees, almost a complete set.  We found so many red Solo cups that it was disturbing, and even saw duct tape incorporated into a Osprey nest.  The bays really need these clean up efforts, and there will be another on June 22 for the lil Assawoman bay.  One area we cleaned was near the nesting bird areas, and that was like a scene out of Alfred Hitchcock’s Movie the birds.  We were waiting to get dive bombed, we did not disturb any nests, and steered clear of any areas that were off limits.  EJ from the CIB knew we would be out there and respect the area.  I had a great time with the Bob’s and an interesting tour.  It was a good day despite the heavy rains that popped up in the afternoon.  Which created a lot of chaos for boaters at Massey’s Landing, that was very entertaining to say the least.  I am hoping for some good fishing this week, despite the bad weather.  The buzz around the area today is the Great White spotted in Jersey near Atlantic City this weekend.  I should have that story for you tomorrow.

Fish On!!

Rich King