Saltwater angling finally heating up
While summer won’t officially start until the summer solstice occurs on June 21 (which also happens to be Father’s Day), the season’s traditional opening gun was fired last Friday with the advent of Memorial Day weekend. As usual, the occasion drew hordes of vacationers to beach resorts all up and down our mid-Atlantic coastline. I also made the pilgrimage, braving the traffic to and from Ocean City, Md., to test my saltwater fishing luck.
By all accounts, fishing action in the salt -from the Atlantic Ocean to both the Delaware and Chesapeake Bays -- improved immensely once the winter-chilled waters finally warmed. The big story from Maryland to New Jersey has been the arrival of hordes of hungry bluefish, many of them “slammer blues” in the 35 to 40-inch class, devouring everything anglers throw at them. Fishermen casting from bridges, boats, and in the surf have been enjoying great success on these toothy eating machines.
And when the bluefish show up, the sharks who love to dine on them won’t be far behind. Ocean water temperatures are reaching into the shark-friendly low 60-degree range and fishermen have started hooking up with makos and threshers. If past seasons are any indication, prime time for sharking should last until about mid-June.
Warming offshore waters at the canyons (Wilmington Canyon and Baltimore Canyon in particular) are also producing good numbers of yellowfin tuna in the 40 to 70 pound range along with a few bluefins. Closer inshore at the reefs, anglers are boating plenty of black sea bass as well as some tautog and cod. A number of hefty striped bass (some up to 48 inches with a lot of shorts thrown in) are finally cooperating at the inlets and in the surf with anglers enjoying fair success on the migrating rockfish. Stripers are also a hot commodity right now in the Chesapeake Bay along with white perch and some croakers.
In the Delaware Bay, nighttime anglers are scoring on big drumfish - with a few hitting the scales at 80 pounds or more - using clam baits at the Coral Beds. Tautog, flounder, and especially bluefish are also providing some action for Delaware Bay fishermen.
My own angling efforts over the holiday weekend were somewhat thwarted by a combination of factors: wind, whitecaps, and holiday boat traffic. Any plans I may have had of piloting my boat through the inlet and into the ocean in quest of slammer bluefish were derailed by rough seas. I like my fishing (and that of any angling guests who join me on my boat) to be as comfortable as possible, and while we could have safely negotiated the briny chop, we would have been continually rocked by angry waves, so we opted to fish the ocean on a calmer day and stick to the back bays for flounder and any bluefish or stripers that might be lurking there.
But the problem in the back bays, which were also dimpled with wind-driven whitecaps, was the heavy boat traffic with too many of the vessels piloted by clueless “captains” powering through the drifting fishing fleet with wild abandon. One such weekend warrior cruised by me at top speed and narrowly missed my drifting craft by about two feet, yet, somewhat miraculously, failed to snag any of our fishing lines. The relentless churning of speeding props and endless parade of huge wakes made for challenging fishing.
We fished for a few hours each on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, targeting flounder on each trip. In light of the boat traffic, stubborn winds, and uncooperative tides, we managed to catch a meager total of four keeper flounder (up to 18 inches) and five undersized throwbacks (under 16-inches) along with one smallish striped bass, also a throwback. The fluke fishing was extraordinarily slow under those adverse conditions.
On Saturday, a United States Coast Guard Boat was prowling the bay, checking on potentially outlaw boaters. Regular fishing buddy Dave Stone (Stoney) was with me and we watched the officers on the Coast Guard vessel, its blue lights flashing, board a nearby vessel. Then, sure enough, despite scores of other boats to choose from, the flashing blue lights headed right for us. “Guess we’re next,” I observed. The Coast Guard has boarded my boat twice in the last three years, so I knew the drill as they approached. “Any weapons on board?” the officer asked.
“No sir, just a couple of fillet knives.” Two officers of the six on their boat boarded us and quickly attempted to make friends with Phoebe, my English Springer Spaniel, whose growling suggested she was none too pleased with the officers’ intrusion. I calmed her down and they proceeded with their inspection. Driver’s license and boat registration? Check. Two adult life jackets? Check. Throw-able safety device? Check. Fire extinguisher? Check. Whistle? Check. Flares? Check. Everything was in good working order and we passed with flying colors. One of the officers printed out a certificate with the results of the inspection and handed it to me. I would keep the paperwork on board and, if the Coast Guard approached me again, it provided evidence that I had already passed inspection that year.
We caught three keeper flounder and three throwbacks that day, but our interaction with the Coast Guard that afternoon was the most memorable thing that happened all weekend. In the meantime, I’ll look for my flounder fishing fortunes to improve in a week or two, once the holiday boat traffic dissipates and, let’s hope, the winds and tides cooperate.