Hot would be an understatement for this weekend. You people complaining you wanted summer back this past winter, get out and enjoy your personal sauna. Be careful out there, it is severe dehydrating weather. My grass looks like the end of August. It’s burnt and doesn’t need mowing. Mostly all of my native whatever grows in the yard is dead. The gardens are doing great, so I should probably water the yard too. Then I would have to mow and not have time to fish. Always think it through. Zucchini magically appearing in your back seat season is coming soon — you’ve been warned.

The fishing has been good for most anglers actually fishing. The surf is producing a lot of spot and kingfish. The fish tacos made from kingfish are excellent. Spot is good for the table as well, just takes a whole school. Several good-sized spot can make for a decent little meal. Fileting is OK, but you can just remove the head, scales and gut the fish, clean it up and broil or even pan sear, then you can pull more meat off the cooked fish, much like you would grill a pompano. Grilling a whole fish is fun at the beach and adds to the experience. Frying that whole fish up is another favorite. I’m making myself hungry writing this.

Sharks are hitting cut baits frequently. Be prepared to pick through a lot of skates, sharks and rays when targeting drum, striped bass and bluefish. An easy way to avoid the toothy units is to use artificial baits and concentrate on the smaller fish. Cut bait like bunker, squid, mullet or clam for drum, striped bass or bluefish are great, but again you will pick through a lot of bycatch. Or you will hook up right away with your intended target, but that’s not the usual scenario. It’s still a fun time fishing — it all depends on how you look at it. Skate is actually great for the table but not so fun to clean.

Flounder fishing has been decent in all the waterways around Delmarva. Plenty of keepers are being landed despite the new size limit for this time of year at 17.5 inches. Try drifting minnows or using soft plastics like Fishbites Fight Club or Gulp. I remember the pork rind and bucktail days when my grandfather fished.
Black drum are still here and there but that is about over. There have been a few red drum caught at Assateague.

There are a lot of spike-sized weakfish around the ocean beaches and some larger weakies being caught around the Delaware Bay beaches. Inland bays has their fair share of weakies this time of year. Spot are all over the bays, with plenty of fish feeding on those. Catch some spot around the piers then head out and drift the bay for flounder. Finding mussel beds or structure helps a lot. Always fish the grass banks during an outgoing tide. We fish near crab pots as they tend to hold a lot of minnows in their structure. We find a lot of flounder around popular crab pot areas in the inland bays. Newly baited crab traps hold more fish nearby.

Crabbing has been excellent in the waterways of Delmarva, by running trot lines, hand lining or just soaking pots for a day. If you don’t keep enough bait in your crab pots, the crabs will leave. They don’t have much to do all day but figure out how to get to another meal. They don’t know they are in a trap. We use bunker to bring them into the trap and chicken to keep them interested during the longer soaks.

Offshore boats are catching tuna and getting into more and more offshore species. Check with the local charters for trips available. Book early, these trips fill up fast. Weekends fill up real quick. Make more time on weekdays to take fishing trips and explore new areas. It’s much more relaxing when you don’t have to fight for room to enjoy the outdoors. Weekends we work and on the weekdays we play like it is a weekend.

Ticks are more annoying. Gardening pro tip: Use a 50/50 long-sleeve fishing shirt to help keep the bugs off your arms harvesting and weeding. Tuck the sleeves into your gloves. I’ve managed to keep the bug issues down a lot this year, so far. I totally jinxed myself.

Get out and fish. Drink lots of water. I mean actual water not all that other stuff. Get real electrolytes not that fruity sugar water with salt. Drink pickle juice, just don’t make it weird in the grocery store. Get in some shade, and be nice to each other, we are all having a brutal day out there.