Are the Sea Trout running yet???

Just in case anyone wants to read Bills Sport Shop highlights.

"FISHING REPORT
FROM
THE STAFF OF BILL’S SPORT SHOP
6-15-03
WATER TEMP: 59.4

FISHING NEWS!

The weather is hot and so is the fishing! Everything seems to be biting and the area fishermen are all smiles. Delaware Bay has been giving up tau tog to the folks fishing green crabs and sand fleas. Eric Sullivan, captain of the Aquaholic sent us some pictures showing John Jackson with a 13lb, 8 oz tog. The group on board limited out at the 14 foot light with all fish measuring over 20”. Dave Hilly made 2 trips to the outer wall and limited out both trips fishing fleas for tog. Hilly said that he caught about 50 blackfish on one of his excursions. Diver Gene has been drifting minnows and squid in and around Roosevelt Inlet and has limited out on flounder on a couple different days.

The pier and the adjacent area around the structure has also been a favored destination. Pops Mawry nailed a 29” striper on whole mullet to go along with 5 nice blues and a keeper 19” striper. Thomas Hengst brought a citation 32 ½” 9.5lb trout over the rails that he caught on peeler crab. John Williams was drifting minnows and twister tails around the pier and caught 3 flounder up to 20”. Mark Olock and Mike Hnot had a banner time on the pier last week. They caught loads of blues between 20” to 25” and two 25” sea trout. Mike and Mark also said that they brought up a few flounders just under the magic 17 ½” mark. Joel Robinson was wading on the flats between the pier and the point and caught an 8.5lb and 9 lb citation trout. He had several others on including a huge weakie, but he lost it when he went to tail grab it. Joel also caught 2 legal flounder on his recent trip.

We are starting to get a few reports of fish being caught in the ocean when anglers can get out. Dan Langdon, Jim Leupold were fishing off their boat, the Ofishal, and caught blues to 10lbs south of the Lightship. John Perrin was fishing green crabs on an ocean wreck and boated a 12.28lb tog that brought him a citation. The Lucky “R” captained by Mike Lancaster took Eric Vitelli and Joe Catalano out to “B” buoy and the guys used squid to catch a load of sea bass to 2.65lbs. Mike Flemming also took a trip to “B” and said the sea bass were so thick, it was hard to get the bait to the bottom before he was hooked up.

Indian River Inlet is still producing striper, trout and tons of blues. John Christian brought an 18.97lb rockfish to the jetty. His buddy, Steven Smith, caught his first striper from the rocks and it measured in at 26”. The guys were using rigged eels for bait. Bobby from Bills, Jimmy Childs, and Tom Stebner were fishing the jetty the other night when the stripers hit the inlet. The action began on a Kastmaster and after that got the fish fired up, they were hitting anything and everything thrown in the water. The jetty jockeys continued with rigged eels and all kinds of plugs and said they bailed fish for quite a while. Victor Thao was casting a Mirrolure into the current and caught 2 trout including one that hit the scales at 8.68lbs. Ron from Bills and Jake Schirmer took another trip to IRI with bucktails and caught 13 nice bluefish before they ran out of white worms used to dress their lures. Billy Purnell was drifting minnows in the back part of the inlet and caught a 23” flattie that weighed 4 lbs. "

IRI......

Everyone is right about IRI...

It's both a great fishing spot where lots of nice fish are caught and also a horribly overrated location where a lot of people who drive a long way can be really disappointed.

There is a degree of tackle shop hype about IRI. The key issues are (and if you read, say, The Fisherman carefully,you'll see) is that 1) sometimes catches by boaters in the inlet and from shore aren't differentiated 2) 95% of the really nice fish are caught by 5% of the fishermen (particularly Stripers) who LITERALLY FISH THERE ALMOST EVERY NIGHT. It's the same names over and over and over and over again. These people know the tides there by heart, they're out there thick and thin, they're outfitted with corkers and often go out to the end of the jetties, etc.

The currents are unbelievably strong and the fishing there is very timing related.

A recipe for complete dissapointment is someone who is a somewhat novice fisherman used to just fishing a few easy access piers, reading about IRI and then driving down some summer weekend for the first time. They're going to lose insane amounts of tackle in the rocks, get tangled constantly, and go home grumbling.


Locations can be VERY erratic; the FIRST time I fished the bank of the Broadkill River north of Lewes three years ago, in ONE hour I caught 6 trout between 7 and 8 lbs. and 2 more between 5 and 6 lbs. And I was there by myself.

I've never done as well since and do worse every time I go; got skunked there a few weeks ago

Happy,

If RI deserves to be a "Hotspot", stop talking about it and start writing up an article for site. It's not that hard.

There is only one "Hot Spots" article for the entire Delaware area even though there are dozens of really good fishing spots there. Here's the article on IRI that I wrote up after fishing IRI several times last year (And I don't even live in Delaware!).

http://www.pierandsurf.com/onthewater/de/iri.shtml

Back to IRI... overated? Lot of people like you who fish it one time, throw in the towel, and say its overated. It's like anywhere else, the more you fish it, the more you understand what works and what doesn't. You didn't get to catch all those flounder at RI just from using one lure or technique. It's called "Paying your dues".

Once Flea processes my donation and upgrades my profile to "Pier and Surf Supporter" status, I'll be able to post photos. I think this is a great option an encourage others to do the same. Fishing photos make a site more interesting!!!