A little reprieve the next few days from the sweltering heat we had over the fourth of July weekend.

Hope everyone had a good time outdoors, we had a blast cutting up trees and mowing grass. We left the beaches for the tourists. Now it is time to get some weekday fishing in and take a break from the yardwork.

Triggerfish are hitting at the Cape Henlopen fishing pier, which is cool and strange all at the same time. Usually you see them at the outer and inner walls or the Indian River Inlet where they are being caught. The fact they are around the pier pilings is just different. Clam is the best bait for them on top an bottom rigs. The boys at the bait shop at the pier caught one and put it in the nature center aquarium in Cape Henlopen State Park. A trigger fish was also caught at the beach in Fenwick Island State park.

There has been a lot of kingfish in the surf the last week, and they have been up to and over citation size. I told someone that and they thought they were going to get a ticket ... not that kind of citation. If the kingfish aren’t hitting, then it is weakfish and there have been some in the smaller keeper range. There have been some larger weakfish around the rockpile at the Indian River Inlet.

The sharks in the surf are hitting cut bait and mullet rigs, it is that time of year. If you catch the prohibited species ... sand tigers, dusky or sand bar do not take them out of the water that is illegal. Lot of tickets were written over the weekend for that. You will mostly catch the scavengers, like sharks, rays, and skates.

Susan Krepshaw holds a big tiderunner (weakfish) from the Indian River Inlet. (Submitted photo)

If you get tired of that change up your baits to bloodworms or the artificial fishbites. Sandfleas are great bait right now for the fish in the surf and short striped bass along the rock piles at the Indian River Inlet.

The offshore action has picked up more and more for yellowfin, bluefin has been some serious work. They came hot one day and then just shut down. Lot of speculation why, I call it fishing. There have been some decent tilefish catches for the anglers that couldn’t find any tuna and went for that alternative. Sea bass is still decent action.

Summer striped bass slot season started July first, and will last until August 31. You can keep striped bass or rockfish in the size range of twenty to twenty five inches. Personally they are my favorite size to eat, they are all male fish so you are not hurting the population or eating a heavily polluted fish. This slot is only allowed in the Delaware River, Bay and its tributaries. The Lewes canal is a tributary from the Kings Highway bridge to the Roosevelt Inlet, and yes, the Broadkill River is a tributary as well as Canary Creek in Lewes.

Clean up

Beach Clean ups are every Tuesday at eight in the morning, Wednesday (because of the holiday) we walked over three miles and went from Point Comfort Station to Naval Jetty in Cape Henlopen State Park. Sixteen people for two hours, (32 volunteer hours for the parks), cleaned up about 600 pounds of trash and old wood. Thanks for coming out everyone, we will meet next Tuesday at Herring Point and do the rest of the park.

Volunteers were given a coupon for five dollars off at Big Chill Beach Club, so your first beer is on DSF. Next week we will meet at Herring Point in Cape Henlopen State Park. We do a different park or section each week.

Rich King’s outdoors column appears Thursdays in the Delaware State News.