The Mid-Atlantic Sportsman: DE Bay Fishing Report

Well this was an "interesting" trip to say the least. I had an offshore trip scheduled with my friends for Friday. My buddy Tom also had an offshore trip with his friends that day and we were both looking forward to getting offshore after some tuna and mahi.

Well on Thursday afternoon, Tom gets a call which canceled his offshore trip because of the weather. All the forecasts I was looking at showed improving weather conditions, so I called Tom and asked if he wanted to jump on board with us, and he was in. So I am on my way down to pick up Tom Thursday night to head to OC, MD to stay the night and get ready for our trip early Friday morning.

At 10:30 at night I get a call from my other friend canceling our trip too! So I call Tom again and give him the disappointing news. Well we decide we might as well go fishing somewhere. I recommend we head out of Lewes, DE and go to the "outer wall" a big rock pile which holds lots of tog, triggerfish and other species. I had heard the triggerfish bite had been good, and with those being some of the tastiest fish in our waters we were excited to get out and catch them.

So after turning around and getting home after 11:30, I was up at 4:00am, hooked up the boat and out the door I went.

I picked up Tom and after 3 stops for bait, tackle and rope to hook up to the wall we were finally ready (I was completely unprepared because of the last minute change in plans). We put the boat in the water, Tom goes and parks the truck and I realize the steering wheel is locked up and the engine wont turn! Well after messing around with it for ten minutes we realize the steering cable has broke!

We were contemplating heading home and just drinking the rest of the day as we were obviously not meant to fish, but I called a friend in the area and he offered to let us use his little 14' polar craft aluminum boat. So we went from going offshore in a 27' Contender, to going 3 miles out to the outer wall in a little polar craft!

We finally got set up on the wall around 9:00am and from the get go had constant action. Unfortunately most of the fish we were catching were oyster crackers. After an hour or so of getting frustrated with one oyster cracker after another we made a move down the wall and reset. We started to catch some nice sized spot and after all we went through I decided we'll at least start keeping these to have something in the cooler at the end of the day.

Tom switched to a sabiki rig with fishbites just to catch more spot and help fill the cooler. After catching a couple nice spot and big croakers he hooked into something different. After a short fight he had a nice triggerfish up to the boat, I wasn't ready with the net, so I stupidly reached down and grabbed the line to flip it in the boat. Right as I lifted the line broke and back in the water the trigger went. I then remembered those sabiki rigs are made up with 4# test!

After getting some ribbing from Tom about losing the first trigger we went back to fishing. We caught more nice croakers and spot for the cooler and about an hour later Tom hooks up again with a nicer fish. An even bigger trigger comes to the surface and I don't make the same mistake twice. Grabbed the net and we finally had a nice trigger in the boat. We continued to fish for a couple more hours and Tom caught a nice 4# tog and we continued catching nice sized croakers and the dreaded oyster crackers. Hit a couple more spots on the way in and caught a couple puffer fish, short flounder and more croakers. All in all it turned out to be a good day. Even if we weren't catching the tuna and dolphin we originally hoped to be catching!