Fishing Report

Black sea bass season is open and anglers are off to a great start with boat limits. The sea bass have been plentiful on inshore structure as well as some good locations off shore. Some bluefish have been mixed in as well as a porgy or two. Tautog fishing is improving, but the water temperature is still playing a big factor in catching the big heavy ones. Hopefully with some help from Mother Nature the water temps will drop some more to help spark a big feeding frenzy on the larger Tautog. The surf continues to produce small bluefish, some king fish and surprisingly enough even some red drum and a few scattered keeper stripers. Lets all keep our fingers crossed that we have a great fall fishing season. LHM has live spot and eels, green crabs, sand fleas and Asian box crabs.

Tight lines everyone, Tommy Serbin.

This past weekend saw a lot of big sheepshead being caught by anglers all over the area. Seems that these ?sh have found their way from normal more Southern water homes to further north to our area. The trigger ?sh have still been plentiful enough to give anglers something to target along with the sheepshead. Tautog are still being caught and hopefully, this weather will drop the water temps enough to start pulling the big ones from their homes in the rubble. Shelia Stohler is still sitting in 1st place with her 6.82lb tog in our Annual Tautog tournament, James Rodek sits in 2nd with a 6.53lb tog, and Jason Destafney is in 3rd with his 5.42lb ?sh. The surf is still producing blues which seem to be getting bigger by the day. Reports are that they are getting to the 20 inch size. We hope some linesiders start showing up due to the weather blowing them south to us.

Tight lines everyone, Tommy Serbin.

Trigger fish and sheepshead are plentiful at the icebreakers and the walls out at safe harbor. The Tautog have started getting a little bigger and more and more anglers are starting to target the toothy critters. The water temp is still a little warm but hopefully over the next couple of weeks it will cool down and start producing larger tog. Small blues and some kingfish have been being plucked from the surf on clam and mullet. The flounder action has slowed up, but that is normal for this time of the year. We all would like to see the stripers show up this year, along with some big bluefish. That would make for a great fall season. Congratulations to TEAM LHM for a 1st place finish in the first session, and a 2nd place team finish overall in the MID-ATLANTIC Surf tournament. The charter boats here on the canal had a great weekend catching big sheepshead, some keeper tog, and even some sea trout.

Well the weather seems to be holding out so far, spring is usually a tricky time of year to plan on the " Big Run " whether it is blues, stripers or drum. So far we have had awesome catches of bluefish. The stripers have been spotty, and a couple more flounder have been caught in the canal. Reports that I have received on drum say that they are starting to show up further up the bay. I suspect we will start seeing more of them come across the cleaning table in the next week or two.The blue " blitz" out at the Cape Henlopen Pier seems to have slowed down a bit, big fish are still being caught with some small ones now mixed in the schools. The tautog season is coming to a close today, a last minute push was on, some anglers had good luck at the outer wall, and a few anglers headed out to ocean structure to get one or two more season ending tog. I'm hearing that the stripers are getting bigger at Indian River Inlet, with some anglers being broken off at the last minute. I hope we will see some more big Linesiders land on the cleaning table. Some notable catches recently:May 5th- Paul Harmon of Middletown caught 4 big blues on top water plugs, out at the Cape Pier.May 6th- Lori Cahill caught herself a 9.5lb bluefish out at Herring Point.May 8th- Brian Scott of Lewes and Ryan Whibley of Milton brought in a nice 13 lb blue caught on a mullet rig at Herring Point.May 10th- Jay Lightner, Jeff Eisenhour, and Charlie Breitenbach gave the outer wall a shot for some tautog and came up with 4 keepers. They caught the tog on a mix of green crab and shrimp. James and Julie Trickey caught four nice flounder in the canal yesterday. The largest was 4.5lb. They were using minnows and a 4" glow/white gulp swimming mullet. Remember our Annual Joe Morris Memorial Canal Flounder Tournament is next Friday May 19th. It is a fund raiser for pancreatic cancer action network. Stop by and register now. Tight lines and good fishing. Tom Serbin.

As Mother nature has seen fit to smile upon us with some early beautiful weather, the fish gods have sent a quick shot of the “yellow eyed devils” to chomp on some lures, bunker and mullet many anglers have had an early wake up call. There are stripers, kingfish, blowfish as well as biter sharks showing up in the surf zone. The big blues have struck at Cape Henlopen Pier, Herring point, Lewes Beach all the way down to Indian River Inlet. Broadkill Beach and Slaughter Beach have turned up some decent sized Black Drum from the beach.

The boats haven't really been up to get them yet, but I suspect with the weather being what it is, that more boats will start chasing the Big Drum shortly. As the weather gets nicer, I've been told by some seasoned Captain’s that this year could also be the triumphant return of the Weakfish. Some have been reported up in the bay, but not in the great numbers as years past. Stripers have been showing up in the surf at Herring point, and the pier at Cape Henlopen. Hopefully this is a sign of good things coming our way.

The Lewes Canal has had some fishermen drifting for some Flounder, some have been caught but we haven't seen many of the large "Doormats” as of yet. Just a reminder, The Joe Morris Memorial Canal Flounder Tournament is on Friday May 19th. If you haven't already signed up, stop by and register at Lewes Harbour Marina. Entry fee is $40.00 per angler, $20.00 of the entry fee is being donated to the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network in Joe’s name. We will accept donations at LHM as well. We will have an awesome tournament Tee-shirt with Joe’s image performing the legendary “ Lewes Harbour stretch". All proceeds raised from the tee’s will also be donated to the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network.

As we are gearing up the shop for the upcoming season, we have been full bore unpacking boxes, hanging tee shirts, and loading the shelves. I apologize for the lapse in time for the fishing report, I will be posting the weekly report by Wednesday afternoons every week. Some of the reportable catches are as follows: April 28th, Charlie Breitenbach, Mike Tippet and Jay Lightner brought 6 tautog back to our table from the outer wall using green crab, asian box crabs and shrimp.April 30th, The crew aboard the “ Katydid” brought back an awesome 30 tautog catch. May 1st, John Davis caught a beautiful 35”, 13.5 lb bluefish caught on cut mullet. The crew aboard the “ Salt Shaker”, Sheila Stohler, Robert Meyers, Jim Myers, and Linda Meyers caught 4 tautog at the outer wall. Also that day Ron Dimaulo caught himself a 12.2 lb, 31” bluefish.

That week as well, our own Julie Stevenson got bit by the fish bug. She hit the pier, beach, anywhere she could cast a line from and put on quite the blue fishing clinic. She caught several of the “ yellow eyed devils” , along with her Mom & Dad. WAY TO GO JULIE... Chris Vann, Jack Austin and Tony Filipponi have been grinding out the local beaches as well getting their share of the blues that have been feeding along our coastline.

Stop in and see us at the shop with your catches.......till next week, Tightlines everyone......Tom Serbin