Fishing Report

Well, spring has sprung.....And the fishing is slowly getting off to a decent start. For the folks brave enough to venture to the ocean structure sites, the Tautog fishing is bringing decent but not stellar catches, that will change as the weather gets nicer. So far the “Katydid”, captained by Brent Weist, has jumped right into wreck fishing and produced nice catches of Tautog.

On April 10th, the Katydid turned up a nice catch of 30 tautog on ocean structure. Then on April 17th, the “ Monday Crew” turned up another 30 fish aboard the Katydid, and 2 citation Tautog recorded that day. Also doing their part, The Thelma Dale, The Grizzly, The Pirate king were also out catching some of the toothy footballs.And so it begins, on April 18th the bluefish started to show up. From Cape Henolpen to Re- hoboth, all the way down to Indian River Inlet. Gage Taylor, of Dover DE weighed in 3 of the “slammers”, at 11.9, 9.9, 9.7 lbs. Then the word got out that they started to feed on the beach. DSF’s own Rich King brought one in to be cleaned at our shop and it weighed in at around 6-7 lbs, caught on a silver 3oz spoon near Rehoboth beach.

From the beach/pier at Henlopen state park, Alex Neiss and Job Robertson, weighed in 2 blues at 15.8, and 12.1 re- spectively. Later this week Alex weighed in a citation 18.5 lb Bluefish. Three of our own local boys also had a great day of catching the blues at the state park beach/ pier as well. Tanner Virden, Jonah Robertson and Jackson Ostroski landed 8 off the beach, all 3 had great catches weighing 11.2 lbs to the biggest, and citation worthy fish coming to the scale at 15.8 lbs, caught by Jackson Ostroski. Altogether, the young men caught 8 big ones in a couple hours of pounding the surf. And last but not least, the short stripers are everywhere.

We are getting reports of catches of shorts into the 70’s in a sitting. From the ditches of the Broadkill River to Lewes/Rehoboth canal and again down to Indian River Inlet. Hopefully, we will be lucky enough to catch some of the big girls that normally make pit stops along our beautiful coast line. Only time will tell...........Tightlines everyone, stay tuned for more reports as the season gets off to what seems to be the start of a good season of fishing.

by Tom Serbin

Hard to believe that it's already Christmas week. In some ways it's been a disappointing fall fishing season. Striped bass action has been anticlimactic to say the least with the vast majority of fish passing by our shores outside of the three-mile limit, thus making the linesiders off limits to local anglers. Sea bass fishing has been very good albeit quite the hike out to the grounds and, now, the season will be slammed shut at the end of the year. Tog fishing in Delaware Bay has been discouraging to say the least, continuing along with the trend that something is wrong up in the big bay.

Happily, tog action in the ocean has been trucking along for some anglers. The Katydid put thirty tog on the deck on Thanksgiving Day, and followed up with 18 the next. November 28^th saw the first day of rifle deer season in PA, and the Katydid celebrated the unofficial holiday by decking a bunch of hog tog. Some of the fish that were landed and their weights were Scot Anderson 9.6, Tommy Isaacs 9.6, Trey Isaacs 11.1, Matthew Thompson 9.4, Jeremy Frog Lynch 10.9, Jeff Trench 9.3. Those are some pretty fish!\

The new month of December saw much of the same, with the Katydid boating 50 legal tog on December fourth. Ten of the fish were citations with Roger Aeo landing the pool winner at 11.08, while Daniel Kawaguchi added a 10.04 pounder and, not to be outdone, Mike Mailman added another at 9.76.

Capt. Carey Evans had a good trip last week with Grizzly charters slamming some big tog. Rik Bednash boated a beast at 11.5 pounds, Robert Pleasanton had a t10.25 pounder, Tommy Sair a 9.75 pounder and five other fish weighted over seven pounds on the same trip.

If there is any local action to be had the Local Girl with Capt. Mike Newsham is sure to be on the meat. Capt. Mike boated a pretty 6.91 tog, while Jackson Ostroski added one at 6.11 pounds, along with anglers Mark Ostroski and Mason Newsham. Other private boats landings included Danny Hitchens Smyrna site 11on the Tied the Knot who landed a nice 10.1 tog 25 3/4x18"green crab. Ross Karsnitz boated a 9.5 pound citation tog using Jonah crabs, while John Dkacz Sr and John Dkacz Jr had a good trip to site 11 on their boat the Fishing Fool.

Capt. Rick Yakimowicz has also had some great tog action aboard the all-day head boat out of Fisherman's' Wharf. James Lee Columbia PA impressive boated an impressive 13.62 lb 28x21" tog with Capt. Ricky at site 11 the day after Thanksgiving. The savvy skipper has had multiple limit catches throughout the month when weather conditions permit. Last week the weather only allowed him to get away from the dock on two days, but the crew made the most of their chances. Mr. Choi was the hot stick again, with a limit catch scaling over forty pounds! Of course, that stringer was anchored by a whopper at 19.5 pounds!

As noted striped bass fishing has been pretty discouraging with the overwhelming majority of the fish passing well out past the three-mile limit. Still there have been some occasional fish that mess up and pass close enough by to be a legal catch for those folks obeying the law.

Brock Hilligoss, fishing with his dad, Mike, landed a pretty 28 pounder while making the long run up to north Jersey. At the end of November, Joe Choma landed both a 36.1 lb and 461/2 pound rock fishing mojo lures in Delaware Bay. Evan Falgowski also landed a 37.2 pound striper in the mouth of the bay. Michael Davis used a white 24x8 tandem to best a 37 pound linesider. Matt Mundok boated a 32.5 pound December striper, with Matt Basie using bomber wind cheaters off Indian River. Lee Abel dragged mojo and stretch 25 lures to land a pair at 23 lb and 22.5 lb rock. JP Turansky, Billy Low, Jay Huss and Brad Pecoraro teamed to land his 36.5 rock trolled 24x12 tandem mojo off Rehoboth. Maggie Lingo her first rock of the season. Ray Ajalli, Cy Brinn 2-37" 2 -35" all in 30lb category on the boat Miss Helen Page pulling a white mojo with chartreuse swim shad in front of Henlopen Hotel. Dave Lynam also landed a 37.5 striper, while Joe Choma bested a beast boating a 45 lb striper. While there are some pretty fish here, there is no doubt that for the sheer amount of boats and anglers looking for them, it's a small showing.

Sea bass fishing has been very good for long range boats. The Katydid had a super catch with over 180 sea bass. Capt. HD Parsons has been limiting out and coming in early on each of his long range headboat trips out of Fisherman's Wharf. These are special trips and reservations are required. The plan is to run a few more up to the season closes at the end of the month.

Here's hoping that you have a safe and happy holiday season! Hang in there, drum season is right around the corner!

Hey welcome back! We've had a few technical difficulties but now we are back up and running! And, as if on cue, the wind finally stopped blowing....well at least enough to get out fishing a few days. We have had front after front roll through with high winds which have not only kept boats tide to the dock and surf anglers safely inside, but also roiled the waters. The murky water has certainly made for some tough fishing

Happily, however, hardy anglers have been able to get out recently with some fine Indian summer weather. Capt. Rick Yakimowicz aboard the all-day headboat out of Fisherman's Wharf in Lewes reports that things have been picking up

"We have seen good fishing on each of our recent trips," the veteran skipper stated. "There have been lots of limits and several quality and citation sized fish over 7 lbs. We still are seeing the occasional trigger or sheep's head and there has been a crazy amount of puppy sized Black drum around. It's been some really good fishing." Tog can be found along the rock piles that line the Harbor of Refuge, and on pretty days they are lined with small boats trying to get in on the tog bite. The fishing here is not for the inexperienced and requires both experience and sangfroid to pull off. If you've never fished the wall it's highly advised that you go with someone who has (safely) before trying it alone. Fishing the wrecks and reefs also requires some experience. Fortunately there are lots of folks that would love to take you fishing!

One such noted captain is Capt. Vince "Killer" Keagy on the Miss Kirsten, who took Jane Martin and Karl Ledford of Lancaster County out to the wall for a pair of 5.68 and 6.15 tog. The Wall also yielded nice 6.57 pounder for John Shoemaker on the Angry Angle, a 5.85 pounder for Jayvon Laguerre, a pair of nice 5.85 and 7.05 pound tog for Charlie Breithenback, a fine 8.39 pound and six pound even tog for Larry Hughes, a 21" inch dandy tog for Sheila Stohler, as well as a 4.51 pounder for nine year old Aaron Bell, and a 6.5 pounder for Greg Curley. Bay structure accounted for a boat limit for Patrick Krajewski and Ethan Malone.

Crab is by far the best bait going to boat some tog. Green or Asian box crabs are favorites, along with the staple sand fleas. This is not a sport for light tackle, as it takes some heavy gear to extract the tog from their hiding places.Bay tributaries are choked with slot stripers now that the season is closed! A few nice ones have been taken in the bay, with good old Gene nailing a legal fish last week. Some fish have also been coming from Indian River inlet though mostly at night. Interestingly, there have also been some small red drum in the mix as well. Speaking of drum, there have been some of the more familiar to our waters black drum around, and tog anglers have been finding some on ocean structure while togging. Jay and Morgan Way from Harrisburg, PA nailed a couple pair of drum with one just over twenty pounds, and one just under on sand fleas.

Bluefish have been showing in the inlet as well as some still making a showing in the surf. In other action sea bass fishing has been very good for the boats venturing out in search of these delicious fish. Capt. HD Parsons of Fisherman's Wharf has been running some ten hour trips and each of his recent outings has resulted in a full boat limit and an early return to dock. Those trips set sail on Wednesday, Friday and Saturday.

Good to be back just in time for some fast fall fishing. Good luck to you all this weekend and let's hope the wind gives us a break!

September is normally one of the very best angling months of the calendar year. There are just so many choices of where to fish in a typical Indian summer-the beaches are normally starting to jump as the mullet work their way south, the flounder "stack up" once again before they scoot offshore, and the first of the tog season is right around the corner. It can also be a time of year when nights spent along the Continental shelf under skies ablaze with stars yields yellow fins and sharks galore and, if you are lucky, swords. But as Capt Pete used to say, "If you don't fish for them you ain't gonna' catch 'em." Things have been a little slower to get started after the tropical storm and we have sort of been in limbo for some of these fisheries to kick off, even though the NFL season has.

Anglers have continued to do well in the region of the ocean known as the "Old Grounds" near the shipping approaches to the Delaware Bay. Mixed bag catches of sea bass, flounder, snapper blues and a few scattered croakers were the norm. Many of the sea bass were "stoned" anglers report, spitting up small pebbles. Often fishermen saw this with the fish when big storms roll through as the fish try to "take on ballast" to keep from getting whacked around during the big waves. The normal combination of jigging bucktails laced with either a strip of Gulp! or a pennant of meat cut from a sea robin or smooth dog can turn the trip. Flounder ribbon is also particularly good as long as you have the requisite carcass from a legal flounder to match it. Capt. Carey Evans on the Lewes charterboat Grizzly reported a stellar catch on a recent trip with several fish decked in the five pound range. Local stalwart Bill Talbot also had a good trip on the same trip while I was cutting grass.

Just taking one for the team for you guys. The Katydid had some great trips on the flounder, scoring a good trip for Bill and Charlotte Hughes. On another trip they had a boat limit for flatties for Ernie Stone, Ron Mistietta, Rob Crossley, Chris Thawlie, Charlie Z, Chris Stippler, Brian Bartkus and Rob Wilson. The boat also had a big day on Thursday for a catch of 20 flounder and 32 sea bass. Evan Falgowski had a doomat fluke pulling the balance down to 7.82 pounds as he and his buddy fished in the ocean with bucktails laced with squid and shiners. Billy Talbot piloted the Lady Lou up into the murkier water of the bay with Jamie Switzer for a limit of flatties with two over six pounds. John Difillippo and Fran DiFillippo and with Capt.Mike Connolly landed a mixed bag of sea bass, flounder and blues on the Sea Note.

Tanya Dauett had a pretty 5.28 pound flattie on the Kelvin J with Capt. West. Surf fishing usually starts off this month and there have been a smattering of catches slipped from the suds. Prior to the Labor Day tropical storm some shots on snapper blues had been reported from the ocean beaches such as 3 R's, Key Box road and along the inlet. Since the storm things have not been a steady. I have seen a few mullet starting on their way south in the wake of the storm but they have been pretty sporadic for sure. Normally, the fish show up just long enough to lure me into finding the "at-the-ready" cast net bucket in the shed to race down to the beach and then vanish. Despite that there have been a few trout caught from Delaware Bay beaches. and even the odd pompano. Bluefishing for snapper blues along the surf has started to pick back up again as the water clears. More fall-like temperatures are in the offing for the coming week. Perhaps that will jump start the mullet again, and things will be off to the races on the beaches.

It would be hard to pick a worse time to drop a tropical storm on our region than the Labor Day Weekend, but sure enough, that's what happened. Even though we were spared the brunt of the storm's fury it sure blew for the entire weekend making virtually all fishing effort impossible. Flounder action prior to the storm was still pretty good, with plenty of great catches coming across the dock. Julie Jolley traveled from Texas to tangle with a nice 5.73, 25 inch flounder from the Delaware Bay. The fish ate a four inch white culp spec rig. The Katydid returned with thirty nice flatties the Wednesday prior to the storm. Capt. Pete Haines took the Top Fin out for a limit of flounder and eighteen nice sea bass for the group from Hidden Acres Saw Mill. Typically a September storm shuffles the deck somewhat, so we'll have to see where the flounder are (hopefully not Virginia) when the wind abates enough There have been plenty of dolphin around with catches of the tasty fish hitting the dock. The Katydid mixed in fifteen dolphin with their flounder catch on Wednesday, and twenty one on Thursday. Marlin action had also been good, with The Reel Chaotic going deep to 500 fathoms of the Wilmington to put the group of Bruce and Joshua Buchalter, Daryl Young, Glenn Davis and Neil Dungello onto two whites and a blue. Hopefully things will settle down some this coming week with warm weather forecasted to move back in. The water in the creeks along the bay are certainly cooler which should get the mullet moving south. Already some trout and surprising pompano catches are occurring along bay beaches, and the blues shouldn't be far behind.