Big Dave's Tackle

Dave at Big Dave’s Tackle reports that the flounder fishing was off the charts this week. Customers were catching them in the back bays, around the inlets, from the oceanfront beaches and from the reef sites. It seemed like the further you went out, the bigger the fish got. Mostly short fish with an occasional keeper in the back bays and inlets. More keepers are showing up along the oceanfront and at the deeper reef sites, including fish up to 6 pounds, plus the Delaware Bay is seeing more keepers in the 20- to 22-inch range. There are also plenty of spot and croakers moving into the inlets and bays. Delaware Bay, just off of Cape May is littered with croakers. Most of the local bridges are seeing good sheepshead activity on sandfleas, shrimp or fiddler crabs. Several trophy fish hit the scales this week including a 10-pounder and a 12-pounder.

Dave at Big Dave’s Tackle tells us that it was a bad week to be a flounder here in South Jersey. Back bays are giving up lots of short fish with plenty of keepers in the mix. The Delaware Bay bite has really accelerated over the last few weeks with more keeper fish in the 20- to 22-inch size range. Anglers fishing the ocean wrecks and reefs are really putting down a beating on keepers to 6 pounds. The wrecks are also stacked up with sea bass, some of which are keeper size, and there are also a few ling being caught from the deeper sites. From the back bay bridges to the Delaware Bay structures, the sheepshead bite is “on fire”. Sand fleas, fiddler crabs or shrimp could get you a PB sheep this time of the year, just like Jason Elias whose donkey weighed 12 pounds, 13 ounces.