A beautiful day and weekend are inbound, with highs in the mid-70s, lows in the mid-50s and a little breeze. On the catch menu, we have short striped bass, flounder, bluefish. Spot and kingfish are still around. Both spot and kings are good bait for red drum, which are still being caught on occasion at Assateague.

White perch are in the waterways with little puppy drum and short striped mixed in.

There have been some keeper striped bass caught, either early arrivals or resident fish, on cut bunker or spot in the surf. These are great conditions to fish, with early a.m. high tides during the predawn times (5 a.m.) before the time change insanity on Sunday.

Tautog at the inlets has been decent action with occasional keepers. Short striped bass and bluefish are around the inlets, too.

Tuna anglers are doing well offshore.

There is a rocket launch Sunday at Wallops in the early morning. Check it out starting at 5:50 a.m. EST. It will be neat to see in the predawn sky. I’m hoping for a cool beach shot of the rocket streak. Look toward the inlet bridge if you are north of the inlet.

Get out and have some fun before the time change ruins the evenings to pitch dark by 5 p.m.

I’m still trying to process this surf tag pilot program reservation system. Yikes!

Delaware State Parks announced its new surf tag pilot program and I have to say I have a lot of reservations — mostly about making reservations to use something  I already paid to access. I opted out of this group and I am glad I did. I would hate to take the blame for this soon-to-be fiasco.

Does parks even know how many people are going to make reservations just to not go and screw up the system? It only costs $4 to make their life difficult and people will pay it. My pages online are on fire with comments. When it goes south on Memorial Day weekend, who you gonna call at the state?

The guy who is fishing before 8 a.m. and doesn’t have a reservation - you are going to stop him from fishing and kick him off the beach for a reserved spot? That should go over real well.

You tell us you can’t regulate numbers on the beach but now you are and can’t even regulate actively fishing. You have off-season permits to deal with, too, that are going out on regular weekends because all you do is get thrown off. Even if you get a “mark” on your green paper, you just go get a new one and tell the office you lost it, I’ve heard tell.

I see so many problems with this new system, especially enforcement being a nightmare.

Tag prices are now more because many can only go weekends and now are forced to pay $8 extra each weekend for both days.

Simple solution: Limit access with gates, and stop with the “we can’t because” excuses. This can easily be done.

DNREC’s mission statement: The mission of the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control is to engage all stakeholders to ensure the wise management, conservation and enhancement of the state’s natural resources; protect public health and the environment; provide quality outdoor recreation; improve the quality of life.

None of these are in the pilot surf tag program. The only thing that lives up to that statement is limiting vehicle access via reservations which there don’t seem to be a limit on. Instead we are still forced to fish side by side with people who do not want or intend to fish, which is impossible. How is that improving my quality of life?

I have no issue with people who want to be out there and not fish. In fact, it should be allowed because the actively fishing rule is not working. The less competition actual anglers have, the better off

I could spend hours telling you everything wrong with parks and this system. I could spend six minutes laying out the solution.

On a side note, the economic impact of surf fishing in Delaware is dropping dramatically. Why spend money to fish if you can’t get the room to do it? So they don’t, and go elsewhere on weekends. It is switching to booze, corn hole and suntan lotion for economic impact from surf fishing beaches. Maybe that should be considered in these meetings.

If we regulate the vehicles, the surf anglers will come back and fish. They will have the space and not get chased off by the day-drinking crowd.