With water temperatures over 60 degrees and many of us still walking around in shorts only a few weeks ago, the beginning of the migratory striped bass season seemed like a myth. Rumors of bass massing to the north of us has driven some of us nearly mad. However, during the past week, water temperatures plummeted into the high 50s and even lower. This means the migratory striped bass season has kicked off in earnest and the big schools of bass from the north have moved within striking distance.
While fishing for stripers on the Coast Guard jetty on Nov 9, I struck out, but a few short bass were caught by anglers near the tip of the jetty. Fishing with plastic and jig-heads, one angler managed about 5 fish, while another caught a 23″ fish on on swimming plug. Walking back in the dark, I nearly tripped over a 31 inch bass caught by an angler named Jack (see picture above). That was his first of the evening on a rising tide. He was drowning clams in the surf. Bass are now showing up all along the beaches from Wildwood to Cape May Point, not to mention the back bays and channels.
Many larger bass are now being taken up the Delaware Bay and in the past couple of days there have been more fish in the rips off Cape May Point. The traditional drifting with bucktails, bunker, clam, and, of course, eels has begun to produce. Captain Jeremy of The Stalker and other captains working the Bay reported decent catches (http://www.capemaytimes.com/fishing/charter.htm). Captain Jeremy reported fish to 23 pounds taken on spot.
Closer inshore, Capt. Ray of the Tiderunner and Capt. Ken of the Irish Fly actually went out together this past week and scored 22 short bass, to about 26″ … all on flies. Both have been starting to report larger counts of bass, although Capt. Ray did note that some of the recent bass have had sea lice, indicating that the fish were not the usual characters that inhabit the back bays of Wildwood, Cape May and Stone Harbor. Note that the fish have been fatter too, as is the case with the short striper shown. This influx of fish arrived as water temperatures dipped. They have also been getting somewhat larger blues (2-4 pounds), although their flies aren’t too happy about being chewed on.
If you haven’t reserved your fall striper charters now’s the time to do so. In recent years the fishing has been good right through December, but you can’t count on it. Reserve now!
Although the blackfish limit is still at only 1 fish per person, tog anglers have been scoring on some decent fish. I observed some tog anglers doing battle with some nice fish along with the rockpiles that seemed to claim more hooks and sinkers than fish caught. I’ve also heard reports of fish at the bridges and at other jetties around Cape May. At least one of the tog landed at the Coast Guard jetty was more than 7 pounds. As of November 15, the limit on tog goes up to 8 per person per day, with a minimum size of 14″. Although it may be tough, try to throw back the big females as they are the breeders that keep the population stable. Without these females, which take several years to become sexually mature, we won’t have tog to catch. The females are blotchy or mottled in color, not all black or dark gray like the males. They also don’t have the hump-like back of the head like males.
The Starlight Fleet boats are now doing daily trips for stripers at 8 am and weekend 18-hour wreck fishing trips. The latter are reservations only (http://www.capemaytimes.com/fishing/fishing-wildwood.htm).