Nor’Easter and Delaware Beaches

The background color of the website has been changed to pink in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness month, October.  The fishing these past few days was great.  Red drum and black drum have been caught at IRI.  Big blues moved through there the other day, keeper striped bass in the mix.  Spot chunks. strips and whole live ones did well.  If you can find one small enough to use on a hook.  Mullet whole or chunked is doing well.  Bluefish, flounder, and shorty striped bass have been the ticket on these baits.  Still seeing nice croaker here and there, as well as some decent kingfish.  Sharks and skates abound.  This has all been in the surf.  A friend of mine was blowing up fish with chicken on Saturday.  Not kentucky fried or that RoFo crack chicken.  (By the way since when does farm have an “o” in it?)  Anyway, I had a great time fishing on Sunday at Beach plum with James’s crew, Scott, and Steve.  The boys were using Mullet and doing rather well on bluefish.  I was chucking spoons, my castmaster, 2 ounce silver was catching bluefish and a shorty striped bass.  The tide was just about the top of the incoming and the water was clear for almost two feet.  In fact the water everywhere has been gorgeous the past few days.  The tide has been up higher than usual the last few days as well.  Which normally would not be a big deal, until …. today.  So at this pint a fishing report is not going to do anyone much good.

The first nor’easter that could be an issue for this area hit this morning.  Well it kind of hit last night too, but today we got the rains, yesterday (Tuesday) was just high winds.  I have been out and about all day checking beaches and the waterways keeping people updated on the Facebook page with pictures and conditions.  This is only day one and it could either get real bad the next three high tides or just the normal low level flooding.  Not to play the Devil’s advocate but I am predicting one seriously bad storm.  All of the weather sites are saying the storm has and will stall.  Pummeling us for at least three days with high winds and rain.  The fact it is picking up warm water from the south off the ocean is not helping.  I wish this was a fun yeehaa, giddy up, come and fish report but it is not.  Flooding could get ugly here the next few days.  I have seen a few reports from the NWS that say the tides tomorrow could be seven feet higher than normal during the high tide at noon.  That is going to be an issue if it happens.  My buddy Scott Jost was pulling boats all day as fast as they could for Pontoon Express.  I was graced with a day off work due to high winds and rain.  So I played storm chaser all day.  I have videos on the DSF U tube site and pictures on the DSF Facebook page.  I will keep up as much as I can throughout this storm.

So what is it like out there?  Well … I would have to compare it to a cat stuck in a dryer.  You are wet, kind of warm and getting rocked by the wind.  There is no where to go to escape, and someone keeps shutting the door on you.  (Alex, that was for you buddy)  I hit every beach and waterway I could today.  The bays already had a lot of water in them when all of this hit full force.  We can expect some more flooding and I hope it is not serious.  There are a lot of boats that were left in at piers.  I remember my first nor’easter watching boats break loose on piers and slamming into each other.  That was sad for the boat owner, highly entertaining for us spectators.  I don’t think people took this storm serious or were caught off guard.  I hope it does not make for a difficult few days, but I am trying to be optimistic.  John Little and Rodney Jones of the Fish Whisperer are in North Carolina catching large drum in forty mph winds and killer surf.  I will try a little fishing tomorrow but I seriously doubt catching will happen.  Unfortunately this storm is going to shut down fishing for the weekend.  Especially from the boat or the surf.  The water is hitting the base of the dunes and today the waves were topping ten feet easily.  The frequency they were coming in was intense to insane.  I watched a guy try to get out with a surf board, and after the fourth time of getting beaten down, he gave up.  I would not be surprised if the parks closed access to the beaches, but then again only a crazy person would drive out in on the sand.  Soaking wet sand is not a good thing for your vehicle.  It will stick to the truck and you stand a good chance of sinking to the frame real fast.  The tide pools on the beaches are filling in and the ledge or drop off is almost five feet tall on most beaches.  It will be a while before fishing from the surf will be decent. I will keep everyone up to date on this site and the Delaware Surf Fishing facebook page as much as possible.

Fish On!! (after the storm)

Rich King