Will The Striped Bass Pass Delaware

I keep getting asked that question.  Will the striped bass pass us by this year in Delaware?  When will the rockfish be here?  I honestly have no idea, I didn’t get their itinerary. There are schools of striped bass off the coast a good five miles or so out, seen by head boats,  and their passengers. “We keep seeing birds (gannets and gulls) working schools of fish on the way to catch sea bass. What are they?” I have received that message a couple dozen times over the past week and a half while in vacation.  My answer was if they aren’t bluefish, they are bass on bunker, and that is what it turned out to be for a few anglers. Once they saw they were striped bass they couldn’t fish for them since they are in the EEZ.  The coasties will be watching the EEZ as always so be smart and  don’t fish for the striped bass out there.  The first waves of migratory bass are headed south, and passing right by Delaware.  The main migratory schools are still far north a good sixty plus miles up the Jersey coast. That is where many boaters have gone to get on the fish.  It is a long bumpy ride to get into the fish but they are up there, just look on Facebook.  Hopefully the big schools will stall around Cape May like they usually do and feed.  That will be good for the boaters, not so much for surf anglers.  I would love to see some massive schools along our beaches, we can always hope.

From Ben Smith our Delaware State striped bass record holder fishing up north …  There was a big body of bunker with striped bass, big bluefish (16 pounds), and finback whales on them off of Long Beach Island  and by Saturday they were off of Atlantic City. This body of fish is moving south fast so hopefully you guys will have a shot at them soon!
Ben, they are 5 miles off the coast right now in the EEZ we can’t touch them!

As usual if you look online on the Facebook fishing pages you can see the madness up north. Head boats parked just off the surf in Jersey within casting distance, piled up on striped bass schools that are feeding heavily on bunker schools. The surf anglers complain about the boats and the boaters complain about the surf anglers. It is a vicious cycle that happens twice a year.  Anglers up north, especially the surf anglers have no idea how hard it is to catch migratory striped bass in the surf in Delaware.  The bonus of that however is we don’t get head boats parked just off the second sandbar trying to hammer fish.  We also don’t get that crowd that sits in their trucks waiting for one guy to catch fish just so they can go stand on their necks and fish.  The beaches are never crowded this time of year.

We also don’t see the blitzes along the coastline like they see. Once in a while we get the schools blitzing along our beaches but that is far and few between, and doesn’t last long.  The state record Ben Smith caught was early in December on a foggy morning on a beach in Delaware Seashore State Park.  We do get big striped bass in the surf you just have to be out there when they come by, and put in the time.  Sitting here reading this report is not going to help you catch a fish, you have to be out there.

These westerly winds the next couple of days are not going to help, but in the mean time you can hammer short bass in all the tidal creeks and rivers.  The inland bays are great too, but harder to get out of the wind.  Usually we see striped bass action in Delaware around Thanksgiving weekend, so next week could be that week they come close to shore or round the corner in Cape May into the Delaware Bay.  We will have to wait and see.  The weather dropping the temperatures really fast just might help get them closer to shore.

Fish On!!

Rich King