For the past week the wind has been the fisherman's enemy, both along the coast and in the Delaware Bay.
By Jim Bolton
For the past week the wind has been the fisherman's enemy, both along the coast and in the Delaware Bay.
Jim Bolton Flounder season closed last Friday with a few nice size 5 and 6 pounders being caught at the shore the last few days. I still haven't found out what the new rules will be for next year.
Those who braved the windy conditions did have some good luck from Atlantic City to Cape May on a variety of bluefish, croaker, kingfish, tautog and a few weakfish.
Hopefully the big striper fall run will begin any day.
In Delaware Bay Ken at Husted's Landing said the wind had been bad. But anyone who fished the creeks and mouth of the creeks caught fish.
Ken said he and son Ken caught two weakfish plus a nice catch of perch. He also said "The Perch King" D.J. McCarthy had a cooler full and Jim Nash of Rio Grande had a catch of 150 perch. Other than that, no one went out in the windy Bay.
Bob at the Anchor Marina in Matt's Landing said he only had one angler go out in the Bay and he ended up with a nice catch of croaker, kingfish and bluefish fishing just inside of Number One Buoy. His name was Joey Castroff with partner Barry.
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So this proves the fish are still out there.
Mark at the Sun Dog Marina said his customers were catching a lot of short 23 to 26 inch stripers and perch just off the dock.
Other than that the wind kept everyone out of the Bay.
I received an interesting letter from J. Gill Lippincott of Woodstown concerning how to tell how old fish are. Here is a paragraph from that letter:
There are several ways of determining the age of fishes with some degree of accuracy. The older is the statistical method, based on measurements of length. For instance, if thousands of squeteagues are measured they will be found if all lengths between 18 and 65 centimeters (7 to 25 1/2 inches.) But there will be many more fish 20 centimeters or close to it than there will be 18, 19, 22, 23, 24 etc. centimeters.
There is another large group approximately 26 centimeters long; then small numbers again till 32 is reached, when another large group is found. These groups are 20, 26, 32, 37, 41, 45, 50, 54, 57, and 60 centimeters in length, and may be assumed to represent the first, second, third, etc. years of age.
Thus, if a squeteague is caught that measures 45 centimeters in length the chances are that it is six years old. This is not an absolutely reliable method, for a certain percentage of fishes of any one kind, on account of one adverse condition or another, grow much more slowly than others hatched at the same time.
Jim Bolton is the outdoors columnist for the South Jersey Times. He can be reached at 856-313-9347 or 22 Arbutus Ave., Millville, NJ 08332.
