Typical summer fishing abides the surf anglers and area waterways. Spot, kingfish, croaker, weakfish, short striped bass, flounder and the occasional bluefish. The water temperatures dropped a little during the last cool-off that helped pick up the fish bite a little. The Cape Henlopen pier is still hot for spot on most days.

The big news now is the mullet are finally making a showing around the flats at the pier and the inland bays. Maybe that will help increase the bluefish bite, but we will see. Use the DS Custom Tackle modified mullet rigs. These rigs ensure you use less bait and get more hook-ups. By keeping the mullet on the entire rig shaft, the hook stays near the tail where the bluefish strike the most, from behind.

The offshore anglers are doing well on sea bass, flounder and the ribbon fish are still being a nuisance.mThese are good to eat so many are starting to keep them and even target ribbon fish, also known as a cutlass fish. The offshore flounder action has really picked up for many of the charters.

Slot striped bass action around the Delaware Bay, Lewes canal and tributaries is decent. The Lewes canal is considered a tributary for the Delaware Bay, from the Kings Highway bridge to the Lewes canal only. Wish it was the entire canal so we could keep from that one spot. Next to that old ___ where that slough runs out of _____ by the old ___ . Yeah, sorry, you will have to figure that out.

One thing we never do is spots for boats, they get mugged relentlessly. Beaches and inlets are a given location I do mention specifically. Land-based fishing at public places isn’t a secret. How to fish some of them can be tricky is all.

The Roosevelt Inlet has seen decent flounder action.

Indian River Inlet has plenty of short striped bass, some keepers still that are resident bass. The sheepshead have started hitting much more. There are occasional triggers being caught at the inlet. More so on the wrecks, reefs and walls in the Delaware Bay.

Bull red drum are at Assateague and some smaller redfish (red drum) have been caught around the inland bays. You can’t keep the bulls but they are a lot of fun to catch. Kingfish heads make great bait for those in the surf. If you know how to fish for red drum, you can find them tailing around the inland bays. If you really know how to fish for them, then you know where to look around the inland bays. I need a wink emoji.

The tuna, billfish action and tilefish has been great offshore. Boats heading offshore are doing well on the good weather days. Call your local captains for trips.

The White Marlin Open ended with a record-setting catch at the beginning of the tournament and ended with a White Marlin topping that catch on the last day. The real winners of the WMO in my book are the crew of the Fishbone. They immediately stopped fishing to go pluck the crew of the Knot Stressin’ out of the ocean when their boat sank. Granted, anytime at sea you help someone in distress, an unwritten code of the open water.

It is a rare thing these days to see competitors help one another. We saw it in the Olympics. We saw it in The White Marlin Open. Millions on the line for prize money, thousands paid to compete and this crew drops, stops and rescues a competitor. That is class and karma will reward them in the future. An example that many should learn and lead with in all competitions. Thank you gentlemen and ladies, you did better than well. You’re the real winners of the 2021 White Marlin Open. Both crews did end up fishing again and brought fish to the scales.

Bloodworms have been difficult to get for the stores. Anglers are resorting to Fishbites bloodworms which work just as well — the absolute best alternative bait you can find. The sand flea, shrimp and crab formulas work well, too. But the bloodworm formulas are the best, even the chartreuse colored ones are fine. It only takes a small piece of Fishbites to attract and catch fish. If you use too long a piece, the fish will chew on the long end and you see a strike but nothing gets hooked. We use a small piece cut the length of the width of the strip. A small square. Despite “worm” in the name you don’t bait a hook like you would with an actual worm. The back of ther packages have hooking instructions.

The two formulas, long lasting and fast acting, work different. They live up to their name. The fast acting dissolves fast and doesn’t have gauze in it. The long lasting has gauze, just pull or cut that off. On a good day you can catch multiple fish on the same piece of long-lasting Fishbites.

Flounder fishing in the surf is easy if you know where to cast and how to jig. Most folks don’t cast correctly is the problem, not only how but where.

Many anglers message us and ask … I’m doing everything I have read for catching flounder in the surf, why am I not catching?

I usually respond … How many John Skinner videos did you watch? The response is usually, all of them.

That man can catch fish and his techniques work here. You’re just casting wrong. Jigging for flounder is the easiest way to catch flounder in surf. You have to put in some work, it isn’t like setting bait and waiting.

Bucktails with gulp are preferred, but any jig head with soft plastics will work. The heavier two- to four-ounce jigs stay in place on the bottom better. Just bounce it along the bottom and “jig.”

Color is usually angler preference, but at times the fish are selective as well. Pink, white and chartreuse Gulp are the favorites.

Water clarity is important to color selection, as well as day or night conditions. Brighter colors during the day, darker colors at night for both jig and soft plastic. Murky water is better with the brighter colors, but will work in the clearer nearly tropical water we see in the summer.

When Zach Farmer posted the flounder pictures to our Facebook Group page, people went wild. There probably isn’t a bucktail in town now, or gulp. Zach Farmer: “No one around us was catching anything with bait, so we broke out the bucktails and jigged.”

In order to get good “presentation” for a flounder in the Delaware surf, there are one of two ways to go about this. Either you find a good cut and jig the cut on all sides, casting straight out. Or you have to cast along the beach. If you were at Assateague, I would fish the troughs between sand bars like this, too, much like New Jersey beaches.

Delaware has a unique surf zone. Casting straight out really only works on cuts or run-outs in Delaware. You can catch just casting straight out, but this works better.

The flounder are mostly right along the edge of that ledge of sand under the first breaking wave. Ambushing crabs that are stirred up, or the small fish feeding on the critters, make easy prey. I’ve caught butter fish trying to scoop up sand fleas. Spot are in there, too, feeding with all the small summer fish. Flounder can eat much larger fish than you think. That mouth stretches really wide. If you need to find the ledge, wade into the water. When you sink up to your knees in soft sand and stones or it just drops off, that is where you want to fish. That ledge is what pushes the wave up into the curl to drop. It is the spot or trough area between the last two waves. Many other predatory fish hunt in this area; bluefish and striped bass will hit jigs as well.

Casting along the beach is much easier on a weekday. If you have a crew taking up a lot of space, you can do this on the weekend. If you are skilled at casting, it is much like flipping or flicking for freshwater bass under trees. A low side cast works the best, you don’t want to arc over lines. The set surf rod lines are farther out and up, you want to be in between the two waves just in front of you. That area is the trough, the low water spot between waves.

Stand in the wash and cast at a 30-degree angle or so along the beach. This allows you to jig along that ledge and gives a longer presentation.
Don’t get me wrong, casting straight out works, too, but it is less work to cast along the beach, and better odds of a strike.

Flounder will also hit your mullet rigs when you are checking bait. This happens a lot and surprises many a surf angler when reeling in to check their gear and bait. A flounder will hammer the mullet as it is pulled through that “ledge” area or a cut.

I’m not saying drop a mullet rig in that spot. But if you fancy using bait and want to hold onto your rod it isn’t a bad idea. The rig will move around a lot from the current and get pummeled by the breaking waves. Keeping it in that trough area is tough. You have to reel in and recast a lot.

I tried this one day for grins and giggles. I was bored, we weren’t catching. When fish aren’t biting and no one is catching, try something else. Even something as weird as this:

“Drifting the wave”
We weren’t catching much one day, about 11 years ago or so, and I don’t have any jigs with me or soft plastics. But I had about three dozen mummichugs we used the day before on an inland bay flounder trip.
I got to thinking, how do I keep these dead minnows moving like they are alive? “Drifting” them along that ledge, like in the boat. Saltwater will kill a mummichog in under a minute or so. Their cells can’t perform osmoregulation fast enough, and the saltwater kills them. I made up a four-foot leader, with a one-ounce egg sinker. Tied this onto my swivel. Then I put a regular bobber on the line, above the swivel. The looks and comments were hilarious. “Hey man, are you using a bobber in the ocean?!”

Yeah, maybe, watch this.

I cast the rig into the first trough behind the breaking wave. The idea was to use the bobber to “drift” the wave trough’s current, keeping the minnow on the bottom with the egg sinker. This would allow the minnow to “move” and the bobber would act as the boat. The egg sinker would also allow the flounder to hit and not feel any resistance, which tends to turn off that strike when drifting on a boat.

Everyone is laughing, until the bobber danced and pulled under in less than a minute on the second attempt. Twenty-inch keeper flounder on the beach. “ Holy %$*&!!! … Hey man, make me one of those!”

Sorry, I only have the one bobber.

I caught several flounder until I ran out of minnows. Would I do this today? Sure, if I had minnows and I was as bored as I was that day, but jigging is just much easier.

Antares was launched with the Cygnus spacecraft on Tuesday to resupply the International Space Station. Due to the new COVID restrictions, I was allowed to select remote camera access or the media viewing area for one person. I definitely wanted our remote access. I have hundreds of launch pictures. We have been fine-tuning Cody Croswell’s gear and skills for remote camera set-up. He nailed these shots. There is video and all kinds of great launch pictures.

Cody volunteered to be my tech photographer for rocket launches. My man has skills! Getting good remote shots is harder than fishing for target species. The vent blast shot is amazing, and a picture no one has tried due to the fact just after that blast, the cameras are coated in rocket juice. The Go Pros set to 4k did an amazing job. Check out Delaware Surf Fishing for full videos and more pictures online.