Weather halts salt water activity down shore
If you are expecting a blue ribbon report on some great fishing at the shore, you are not going to get it here.
A variety of weather conditions did an excellent job of all but shutting down salt water activity in the past week. On Tuesday of this past week, my home weather station recorded gusts of 30 mph from the northeast and on Wednesday those gusts reached 35, again from the northeast.
Before being dealt a lousy hand by Mother Nature, there had been some seriously good fall fishing. Now, we have to wait for a run of stable weather to see if all the action picks back up again.
The fishing had been so good mainly due an abundance of bait ... primarily mullet. Just about anything will devour a mullet; and in the south, mullet is a dinner table delicacy. The thick schools were gathered just about everywhere, from the surf to the back bays and tidal rivers.
One area that has been relatively hot for the past couple of weeks is around Corson’s Inlet in the vicinity of the Chattin Bridge. Fishing from the bridge or the banks, anglers have been picking blues, weakies and spot. A couple of speckled trout also were there.
Kingfish continued to be hanging out in the surf, and there have been increasing numbers of porgies. This has not been a good year for croakers in Jersey waters.
Due to a slow start to the Pat Erdman Atlantic County Surf Fishing Derby, the event organizers have extended the event to Dec. 1. Just a few small fish have been entered so far, and the anticipation is that everything will break loose once there is some relief from the weather.
The New Jersey black sea bass season has reopened, and you can bet the reefs and wrecks will be fished hard in coming days. Right now, the sea bass regs allow 10 fish per angler with a 12.5-inch minimum size. However, come Nov. 1, the minimum sizes goes to 13 inches; but the bag limit is extended to 15 fish. Don’t look to me for an explanation how those convoluted regulations came to pass. ACROSS THE BAY >> Delaware and Maryland anglers have been dealing with the same weather conditions as the Jersey anglers. It appears the most steady is in the upper Delaware Bay and the C & D Canal, where there has been a pretty good bite of perch and catfish.
Miah Maull is holding some trout and flounder, and shore based anglers around Bowers have been catching trout as well. The Cape Henlopen State Park Pier had been producing some flounder and trout, primarily on mullet. And before the weather interfered, the lower bay reef sites had some good catches of croakers, triggerfish, blues, spot, flounder and kingies.
Surfcasters have to be content with kingfish, small stripers and blues. But on most days, standing in the wash will get you pretty beat up.