Sorry for the delay-summer at the beach means company as many of you well know! The summer heat has hit with real force as the dog days of thick humidity and sweltering temperatures fog in. And, like a breath of fresh air, the tuna have arrived. Good catches have come from the old stomping grounds of the lumps along the twenty fathom line like many of us remember from the good old days that for many of us just don't seem all that long ago.

Speaking of the good old days Capt. Dave Filepas on the Bottom Line put his crew of Steve Millman, Bob Graham, Steve Miller and Tom Ring on some nice yellowfins with the biggest pulling the balance to 42.9 pounds. The Katydid had a couple of nice trips as well, with Bill and Charlotte Hughes scoring a cooler full of meat with six nice yellowfins. They also had another trip with both blue and yellowfin tuna between 40 and 69 pounds. Capt. Carey Evans on the Grizzly took Mike Roebuck and family out for eight nice yellowfins. The Bikini Bottom crew of Greg Pearson, Nick Pearson and Dan Heim landed three nice yellowfins at Masseys. Of course heavy boat traffic over the weekends can make things tough, and reports of boats having to drop down to 30 pound floro to get the bites abound. Flounder are still the mainstay of the bottom fishing effort, and the ocean is still, despite a few more fish being taken from bay rubble piles, the most consistent and least (but not entirely) sensitive to conditions. The Katydid took a break from clobbering tunas to flipping flounder on deck, and returned with 25 flatties from the Old Grounds. 12 year old DJ Diamont landed a nice 3.56 pounder. Jeff Sherwood had a pair of nice flatties with one at 3.81, Ernie Stone had one at 3.06 and Chris Thawles one at 2.61. Steven Herr landed his first citation flattie with a nice 7.6 pounder caught right in front of Lewes Harbor. Must be the water there! Capt. Vince "Killer" Keagy on the Miss Kirsten had a great day withh Sharon Price landing a 4.73 pounder, Pierce Gibson a 4.62 pounder, Colin Meany and Shane Gibson landing seven flatties. Capt. Rick Yakimowicz reported that the Fisherman's Wharf all day headboat catches have slowed somewhat from a couple of weeks ago, and that the fish have been on the move around the full moon period. The fish seem much more spread out and there are more shorts than before.

Still, hard corps jiggers bouncing Gulp! are are landing limits and the pool fish has always been in the four pound class. Tatyana Chub and Kyle McNaughton from Richfield, PA both had doormats of five and six pounds last week. James Kwangyu Jeun stole the show with a 9 pound, 4 ounce monster flounder. Bill Haines and Dancing Donna continued their streak of limits with nice flounder in the four pound class. In other bottom news there are plenty of trout around but, of course, you are only allowed one so not many folks are targeting them. Capt. Jack Stewart on the Fish Hawk had a nice catch of kingfish and trout with Ganon Smith from PA being the high hook. In more exotic news Frank Tier landed a whopper of a sheepshead on a sand flea while fishing at the Ice Breakers. The monster weighed in at 12.07 pounds. Not to be outdone, Capt. Joseph Crowley fished on his boat the Why Knot at the outer wall and landed a 14.6 pound beast of a sheepshead. Dorian Idsall fished on the Grizzly and caught 6 triggers, a tog, a trout, a blue and two porgies, one of which was a 2.74 pound citation. That's quite a day! And four year old Brighid Churches, visiting with her mom Christine Chuches from Las Vegas, went fishing with her Aunt Kathy and Uncle "Dizzy Cuda" Whitham to land a nice keeper trout and big white perch.

Surf fishing continues to be a normal summer mix of kings, some spike trout, some snapper blues and plenty of sharks. The kings are falling for both real and artificial bloodworms or small bits of clam. Kings also really like fresh cut bait so consider stripping up a spot if you get one. Of course the problem with that is that you are probably only moments away from a sand bar shark which means a lost hook! Size six long shanked hooks work well for the kings and assorted small fish. Kingfish are also like color so some of the commercially tied kingfish rigs with different colored floats can work well. They are notoriously finicky about color so keep changing until you find what they like. Also, like the pompano, they are in close so resist the urge to rear back and cast towards Portugal or you'll get an A for distance and an F for catch. Try and land your offering right behind the first wave. Good luck and go get 'em!