I hope everyone had a great and safe holiday weekend. The short work week is always a nice change of pace. Meanwhile school has started up which is a different change of pace. I can hear parents celebrating, not so much the kids. This just means fall fishing is much closer of a reality.

If everything showed up early for spring then it makes sense that fall fish would show up early as well. Maybe?

I’m in the mountains for a few days and it is really cold up here. Fall is early in the hills of northern Connecticut. The fish are chewing, but have slowed down — fall fishing, cooler water. There are leaves starting to turn up here, ferns are turning brown. Traveling between temperature zones this time of year makes for a lot of different fishing.

Now I’m back in Delaware for kingfish, spot and all the summer surf fish for tacos. There are blue runners in the surf and they always confuse people for a weird catch. The fish identification arguments online are stellar.
Pompano are about nonexistent this year. The cooler water kept them farther south. There are plenty of skates and dogfish to occupy your time.

Weakfish catches seem to be bigger along the Delaware Bay beaches. Bowers Bayside Bait and Kayak Rentals reported seeing cobia still around bunker schools. Flounder are still a decent catch at the jetty in Bowers Beach.

The wooden ship many saw off the coast this weekend was the Nao Santa Maria. Rumors of the Black Pearl coming to Lewes are just not true.

Boats get out when they can weather pending. There are a lot of inshore places to fish like Fenwick shoals, or fish the pots. Despite the crowds, there is still a variety of places to fish where you can avoid a lot of people and still catch. Finding those places is the fun part. Mostly these are times and not places, like fishing certain areas on weekdays. Out of the way areas are empty. And on a weekend the out of the way places are still kind of empty this time of year. The weekend party crews are much less in number. More room at the boat ramps and less traffic on the water, same at the beaches. It’s not a ghost town like the days of old, but it’s what we’ve got.

Call ahead for charters to see what they are targeting, some may be shifting to more productive species. They will know what is best to target.

It’s time to meet up with the saltwater fly anglers on Wednesday evenings at the Cape Henlopen fishing pier for a little fly fishing. They usually fish the high tides on Wednesdays.

Check your fall gear. Get ready for sooner than later action because you never know and it is always good to be ready. Also who else needs an excuse to buy a new rod? Just me?