Memorial Day Weekend Stripers
May 25, 2015
Usually Memorial Day is a little late to intercept the migratory
run of striped bass in our area. Our area is the Delmarva, or Delaware,
Maryland or Virginia. However, this Memorial
Day fell a week before the last weekend in May and there were a few fish around
to play with. I did a family trip to the
beach for the weekend. We made a 24 hour
pit stop on Kent Island where I merely only caught a few dink stripers and
white perch from shore under a dock light.
But with the white perch already in their summer pattern of holding to
shoreline structure, that was good to see.
Some really nice white perch will hug the rip rap along the western
shore of Kent Island and an ultra-light or fly rod will get the job done. Okay, so back to the beach. My first evening fishing was Sunday
evening. We first stopped to pick up
fresh bait in Cambridge and a sea food distributer named Kool Ice. Fresh bait is key. It’s probably the most important part of bait
fishing whether surf or chunking from a boat.
If it’s been previously frozen or sitting on ice for a few days, it’s
basically worthless. How can you
tell? Well, does the bait bleed? Is it mush?
Does it fall off the hook on the first cast? Does it smell foul? These are all bad signs. The bait I bought was fresh bunker or
menhaden or alewife…. Lots of different names for the same thing.
So the first evening I’m set up with beautify fresh bunker
on Ocean City surf. Usually OC surf is
kind of lifeless. They have a lot of beach
replenishment and basically suffocate the life near shore because of it. But if there are sand fleas in the surf, then
there is life. And sure enough I’ve
caught a good number of sand fleas in the surf over the years and a few decent
stripers. Sand fleas work well for
stripers and black drum also BTW. But do
not stay on the hook for very long. So I
start fishing at 515pm. I ask one life guard
and he says I’m okay. Then walk to a
better looking spot that was actually a GPS point from last fall. Basically you just want some sort of anomaly in
the surf, something to break up the monotony.
Ideally you find a rip current or a break in the sand bar where water is
sucked out past the breaking waves. Find
one of those and you will find a feeding frenzy. I’ve only found a few in my day but wow was
it fun. They are often not very obvious unfortunately. But if it gives you confidence, then have at
it.
The first life guard said fish. So I did.
Then the second comes down and tells me to leave. At this point I’m frustrated and told the guy
I’m fishing. Well, two minutes later 3
more come down and tell me to leave. I
told them to show me the code. Then a
fourth more senior guy comes on a 4 wheeler.
At this point I just had to wait 10 more minutes till 530 but I wanted
to fish. Slack low tide was at 745 or
so. So I reeled in the line. Then at 526pm I threw back out. Hahah.
At 529 my rod bed over to the ground. I was casting out my second rod at
the time when my big heaver, 10’ tica with a diawa conventional saltiest is
spewing drag. This is no skate. I put the other rod down and start the
fight. This fish fought well, head
shaking the whole time. I planned the
breaking wave’s right and surfed it in to shore. My first keeper from the beach this year! In the ocean in MD now it is a one fish per
person per day limit of a fish 28” or greater.
This fish was over 30” but under 36”, figured I’d keep it. Why not.
Success. No more hits, 745 and
dead low came by and I packed it in. Met
my wife, sister and brother in law for dinner 30 minutes later.
The next night I got the pass to fishing again except this
time I hit Indian River inlet in DE. It
was the end of the outgoing tide and I chose the jetty. I wear spiked corkers on my feet for added
traction on the slippery rocks. Almost a
necessity. There were two other guys at
the end of the jetty fishing for the elusive sea trout or weak fish. We used to catch them all the time on small
jigs back around 2004 but not much since.
I hear they are making a comeback but it’s hardly worth the effort for a
12 inch weak fish. A striper the same
size would tow a weak fish back to NC in a second. Well, not but five minutes in I get slammed
and my drag is screaming with the outgoing tide. I am way under gunned hear using a 6’6”
medium heavy st croix too. But I seal
the deal and land a respectable albeit skinny 39” striper. I released the fish but later found out I had
to because DE has a slot of two fish from 28-36” and over 44” so anything from
37”-43.9” must be released. That’s a lot
of released fish right there. I later
moved a few feet down the jetty to try and reach the hole at the end of the rocks. Another gentlemen moved into my spot and
started putting on a clinic. He was
using a 6 inch storm shad, clear color.
I was using a 10” BDK with a one ounce head. The wind was ripping from the south so we
were throwing right into the wind. He
caught one really nice fish and must have measured it a dozen times. Right at 40”.
It was out of the water a while too and when released floated up at
first. But then took off. Who knows if it survived? He was not happy he had to release it. He caught several more shorts and good size
keepers or slot fish too. Sometimes that
exact rock is the ticket. The tide was
near slack and I think it was the swim shad.
I didn’t have any, stupid me. My
baits were going too deep? Or not deep
enough? Anyway, I only fished an hour or so the first night and a few hours the
second and got two good fish. Missed a
couple more too. Things are still going
strong down there. I read about multiple
fish caught over the weekend from as far south as VA Assateugue Island. I also heard that the Cape Cod Canal was
rocking with huge fish smashing lures for the shore fishermen. Crazy Jim is on big blue fish and stripers up
on the Cape. There are still some big
blues around IRI in DE but not nearly as many as there were earlier in
May. It was an epic two week blitz of
giant blues for IRI. Too bad I missed
it. Time to change gears now and chase Muskie
I think. Water temps are already approaching
80 degrees on the USGS. Over 80 up river
and it’s too warm..! We’ll see what the
full moon brings this weekend.
No comments:
Post a Comment