Bottom fishing in general was pretty good during the week. Water quality improved in Lewes Canal, and flounder catches were better as a result. Donnie Nauman checked in with a limit of flatties to 21 inches he took from the Canal with shark belly and Gulp! Cheryl Davis decked a 21 inch fluke while drifting minnows in the Canal. Matt Mitchell, Spencer Brooks and Zach Belcher had three flounder and some chopper blues while working Gulp in the Canal near Roosevelt Inlet. Shea Lindale and Terry Algier used minnows, shiners and Gulp for a nice catch of flatfish from the Canal. Ed Yingling and Dave and Bobbi Jo Lorah drifted Nicks rigs with minnows for a half dozen plump keepers Friday. Matt Purnell pulled in a 23 inch flounder by jigging a Gulp at the base of Roosevelt Inlet. Ron Noll and Kenny Robinson used Speck Rigs tipped with Gulp in the Canal for three keepers to 20 plus inches. John Mitchell and his family managed seven nice keepers from the Canal Sunday while deploying Nicks Rigs baited with minnows, shiners and Gulp! Best bite occurred in clean water at the beginning of ebb tide. Bottom bouncers in Delaware Bay reported better action with panfish. More croakers have shown up, along with kingfish and blowfish. Boats drifting or anchored at Site 5 in Broadkill Slough or Reef 8, the Star Site, hooked a tasty assortment of bottom feeders using clams, bloodworms and Fishbites. Patrons on the Angler had a good catch of kings and hardheads Saturday. Roberto Campitelli and Mark Maggs were using croaker rigs on light tackle at the Star Site aboard Katydid Sunday, and tangled with black drum weighing 30 and 40 pounds that grabbed small pieces of clam meant for hardheads. Big bluefish continued to hang out inside Cape Henlopen, and could be found feeding on bunkers most days between the Fishing Pier and Cape Henlopen Point. Captain Pete on Top Fin had a group of Canadians in town for the Nascar race who wanted to squeeze in a little fishing. He took them to shallow water inside the Cape where they had a blast tangling with slammers to 13 pounds while casting bucktails. Blues have remained in the area for over a month, and its unusual to have a spring run like weve experienced this year. Perhaps theyll stay all summer, and at least, well hope for a return of choppers next season. Striped bass have been active in Lewes Canal. Most were shorts, ranging 18 to 25 inches. Theyll eat clams fished on the bottom, or a variety of artificial. Casting bucktails or Storm Shads around the drawbridge results in rockfish bites. Live eels drifted around the pilings usually get the attention of larger bass. Tossing topwater lures to the marsh banks is a fun and productive way to fish Canal stripers. Zara Spooks, Chug Bugs and Rebel Pop-Rs are popular and effective offerings. Catsing plugs at the Outer Wall during low light at dawn and dusk produced some keeper linesiders. Sommer Falgowski scored a 14.4 pound striper by swimming a Mother of Pearl Bomber along the Wall. A few rockfish roamed the surf as well. Drew Stuchlik got up extra early Thursday to get in some surf casting before work. He walked the beach at Herring Point tossing a white bucktail, and connected with a 14.7 pound bass. In addition, the bucktail produced three quality flounder to 5.5 pounds. Drew was back at the cleaning table by 7am, and still made it to his job on time. Other surf anglers had success too. Bluefish of varying sizes were hooked using cut bunker or mullet along the Ocean beach. Andy Lano landed several kingfish, blowfish and burrfish using bits of clam in the suds near Gordons Pond on Friday. Black drum continued to come from Delaware Bay. Boomers were located on the Coral Beds inside Broadkill Slough, and near the submerged piles off Fowler Beach. However, it seemed there were more fish found in the Brandywine area, between 14 Buoy and the Pin Top. Drummers on the Grizzly caught 16 fish there Friday night. Six were iced down in the box, and the other 10 released. Kylie Hinch and Tom Maracle had come to the area to take in the race at Dover, and decided to get in some drum fishing on Miss Kirstin Friday. They returned with a pair of nice boomers scaling 30.5 and 39.2 pounds. Nathan Gemberling got a 61 pound drum earlier in the week on Miss Kirstin. Brian Hafer boated a 61 pounder on the Pirate King. Kyle Moore muscled in a 71 pounder aboard Lil Angler II. Captain Carey remained on the Delaware side of the Bay Saturday evening, where drummers on the Grizzly kept five fish from the Coral Beds. Ocean bottom bouncers reported plenty of short sea bass, but noted that keeper sea bass were thinning out over wrecks and reef structure. However, persistent crews that made multiple stops during the day ended up with decent numbers to take home. Anglers have been pleasantly surprised by the amount of codfish in the area this spring, and adding a few of them to the cooler really rounds out a catch of bass. Some cod have been quite sizable. Jomarr Hatten boated the biggest brought in so far on Friday. He had a 30 pounder while fishing over the Subway Cars aboard Katydid. That same trip produced a dozen other cod for the box, pollack, ling and 86 keeper bass. Monday anglers with Captain Brent kept 3 cod, some ling and about a hundred bass. Thursdays group on Katydid had 8 cod, along with several big ling and a limit of sea bass. On Saturday, regulars aboard Katydid captured 10 cod, a bunch of big ling and a boxful of quality bass. Mike Surowiec managed a 3.14 pound citation size knothead during that outing. Offshore bottom droppers encountered tilefish in the deep. Jon Bixlers crew on the Bix drifted Poor Mans for seven pretty Goldens. Corey Crout caught the heaviest tile, a 32.1 pounder that ate a jig worked on the sea floor. Some anglers traveled south try for cobia at the mouth of Chesapeake Bay. Butch Warrington heard the bite was on at Cape Charles, and headed for Latimer Shoal. He returned with a 50 pound cobia he caught there while baiting with clams.