Photos Courtesy: Tiderunner
Although the real run of weakfish has yet to begin in earnest, some decent weakies are making a few anglers happy. The 27″ weakie pictured above was caught on the Tiderunner on a fly. There are few reports that suggest the weakfish run has really started, but the fish that are being caught have often been sizeable. If the main schools of weakies arrive late as they did last year, we may still have a decent season. Those fish were in the 11-13″ size class, so if these fish show up this year, we should have some fun.
Bluefish and striped bass are being reported from many different locations from the back bay sodbanks to offshore. Anglers are catching mostly smaller fish from the jetties and close to shore. Capt. Ken of the Irish Fly caught a number of blues on ultralight tackle, with the largest being about 19″. Capt. Ray of the Tiderunner has also done well for his charters with flies and light tackle artificials accounting for decent numbers of blues. One evening this week Capt. Ray’s fares managed to catch 17 bass to 25″ and 12 blues to about 3 pounds, all on flies or ultralight tackle. His highlight of the week was a surpise brown shark that measured about 6 feet in length (probably 75 pounds), taken on a live bunker.
Flounder in good numbers and size continue to be caught. Several flounder weighing more than 4 to 5 pounds were caught aboard the Starlight Fleet. Nice mixed bags are being reported on the 4 hour trips running at 8AM, 1PM and 7PM. Seabass are still being caught along with some heafty blackfish (to 7 pounds) and bluefish (to 6 pounds). Drum are still being reported from Delware Bay, although the action should slow down with July approaching.
Photos: Courtesy Adam Bomb
With many people expecting a tough year for flounder, the 2007 season kicked off with some nice catches. Trepidation over a 17″ minimum size limit had anglers wondering if they were going to get any keepers this year. The first flounder for the year have actually been larger than expected by many seasoned anglers. Many of the charter and party boats are reporting pretty good flounder fishing, or nice mixed bags for those fishing in nearshore waters of the Atlantic.
Capt. Adam of the Adam Bomb charter boat reports some large flounder this week with one about 8 pounds being landed by one of his fares.
He says the fishing has been good with decent sized flounder being caught. The Starlight Fleet seconds that information on large flounder. Capt. Jim Cicchitti reports several flounder this week to 5 and 6 pounds, with several 3-4 pounders also being caught. Catches of flounder have been mixed with sea bass to more than 3 pounds and some decent tog. During the past week, Cicchitti also reported blackfish weighing 9 pounds 10 ounces and 15 pounds 11 ounces. The latter fish is a jumbo that we rarely ever see. The Starlight boats are getting mixed bags that also include some bluefish.
The striped bass fishing hasn’t really turned off for the summer as reports continue to come in of decent catches. With most people focusing on flounder and drum in the past week, the fly anglers like Capt. Ken Kelly are still focusing on stripers and blues. Earlier in the week, Kelly reported taking several bass to 25″ on flies out front and in the back bays. He also put his single-party charter onto some bluefish on flies.
Meanwhile, drumfish continue and that fishing should be decent through at least mid or late June.
Weakfish have yet to pick you and reports for June are usually much better than we are now seeing.
Also See Cape May Fishing Forum!