Full Moon, East Winds,and King Tides Equal …
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Not heeding my own warning in the last article, I headed to Dewey today to pick up Matt Adams to hit the point. Now I knew the water would be bad at high tide, but I figured it would calm down quickly, and we could get to he point or close at least after high tide. Whoops! I ran into Boots on route 1 and he said that Herring point looked like a lake, which is what it looked like Saturday night, only today it was worse. The water is to the dune base there is barely six feet to drive, we are headed to IRI. Tides will be a tad extreme the next couple of days from the king tides, full moon,and today’s east wind. I dropped by Dewey to pick up Matt and we walked to the beach just to look at the water and gauge when we might be able to drive onto the beach. Sooooooo … the water was not only to the dunes, but the entire beach was covered, with water. Then I remembered there are king tides today and tomorrow, which I totally forgot to mention yesterday. We headed for the inlet and met everyone down there. They boys were catching a few dogfish, and further above us on the rail guys were hitting tautog, bluefish and big shad. So we at least had something to catch and some fun doing it. The bluefish that tried to annihilate my metal was almost as big as the lure, hungry fish. Since our plans took a one eighty, I decided a huge french toast breakfast at the local diner was in order and then we would hit the beach when the water calmed down.
This morning’s high tide … Parks said they will not close the accesses, figure people will use common sense
Once we hit the beach the water was down, but as usual as it has been lately, the swales were full of water. We did stop by the southside inlet earlier and watched a guy try to turn his truck around in a 5 foot wide dry space on 3Rs. That did not look like a lot of fun or a good idea. The beaches are changing daily which is the norm after a storm, but the cuts keep changing up. The heavy cut we fished on Sunday was still there but not as exaggerated and the trough is still forming up in front of the beach. The sand bar was about thirty yards out and that East wind made it tough to reach. We had fishbites and some fresh bluefish chunks. We loaded up the DS Custom Tackle top and bottom rigs and let her fly. I also got to try out Frankenrod today, that new beast works great, but I will get to that later. Lines were in holding with only three ounces on the top and bottom rigs and Tom was using his 6 ounce sputniks. He was really dug into the cut with heavy current. It was a dogfish and drum fest until a bluefish broke the streak. We had a good time catching today. While we were out there an E2C Hawkeye flew by and I got a cool video of it. While we were not looking two A10 Warthogs buzzed overhead. We waved to them, and it looked like the pilot gave us the wing nod. I wish I took that video, but they snuck up on us, which technically is their job … nice work boys! A little while later the DNREC Police boat went by in rough seas, then we saw a sailboat, and finally a helicopter with pontoons. For a Tuesday and no one else on the beach it was an active day out there.
Low Tide later in the morning today
The water was much cleaner on the outgoing tide and then had that grayish color to it on the incoming. It was the best looking striped bass water, but too bad they are not here yet. A few shortys have been caught in the surf and we heard of a keeper that was hit at IRI when I ran into Chris Kramer. He was tautog fishing and saw a keeper striped bass come over the rail. Hopefully the rockfish come close to shore, we do have some nice food out there, like those puppy drum and small blues. We were trying to catch kingfish which are still here, but all we came up with were drums, dogs, and blues. Some nice kings were caught on Sunday on Fishbites just on the back side of the sand bar. Oh and then there was the fifty gallon trash bag that was snagged and several Mylar balloons that washed up while we were fishing, hate those things! They have been properly disposed of in the recycle bin. There is an old bulkhead exposed on Conquest beach in front of the Lifesaving Station, no it is not a pirate ship. There have been some monster northern stargazers being caught on the southern beaches form 3Rs to Bethany Beach. Some are upwards of eight pounds. One guy caught one and it immediately buried itself trying to get away and took his rig with him. He finally gave up and let the fish alone, but did recover his rig. They are ruthless looking fish.
What can you expect the next day or two? We have a Coastal Flood Advisory in effect from October 28, 06:00 AM EDT until October 28, 12:00 PM EDT. The East winds and king tides will push more water in the the inland bays. There is a Small Craft Advisory until late Wednesday night. 6 to 9 foot seas tomorrow, 30 knot wind gusts, with sustained winds at 20 to 25. Expect that to increase Wednesday night. Did I mention the rain for tomorrow? All day. Thursday it will calm down a bit but still be rough out there. The Delaware Bay will be about half the offshore conditions. Still going to be rough out there. On the bright side it will average sixty degrees outside. Maybe these rough winds and seas will push fish our way as they come around Cape May for the first striped bass wave. Or the fish will hangout in mid Jersey feeding on bunker schools, who knows? You won’t, unless you get out there and fish, that much I do know. The weekend is going to be rough into Saturday with heavy winds and mildly rough seas. All in all it is going to be a surfers delight and not so much for an angler, but we will still try and see what is feeding, fish have to eat. Tautog fishing has been great and so has the sea bass action, but getting out there the next few days will be a tad rough, or as we like to say … right snotty. There are still some nice flounder being picked up out there as well as decent sized bluefish for this time of year.
Frankenrod is my old now new surf rod that was fixed by Patrick Conroy at PC Rods in Milton, DE. So what had happened was … I shut the front door on the base of the top of the rod. I tried jamming it into the lower section, but that didn’t work too well and made things worse, of course. I talked to the company, I didn’t like what I heard. We may or may not warranty it and you will have ot send it in, with no guarantees of getting it back … no thanks, I have a back up plan. Before I called the company I showed it to Patrick Conroy, he said … “Hey if they say no, let me have it I can possibly make it a one piece.” Long story short I dropped the rod off to Patrick. He cut the top section down about a foot, made a reducing piece to put them back together, and put a spline in the joint. This rod casts better than it did when it was a two piece at ten feet long. It is now Frankenrod, the mutant nine footish Star Rod. Now I just have to find a good reel to match it up with, but it casts like a dream. If you ever need a rod built or fixed, go see Patrick you can’t go wrong, the boy has skills.
Fish On!!
Rich King
Today at Conquest and IRI …
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Sunday At Conquest … You can see the difference in just 2 days at the same spot
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Fish Pictures form this week on our Facebook page ….
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