A beautiful weekend is coming! I can’t wait for constant warm days and cool nights on the beach. I’ve spent all winter getting ready for some time off in the sun. Now we will see how well that works out. This wind can stop any day now but I don’t see that happening.

The Cape Henlopen State Park Fishing pier is open to fish. There are sections of it closed for safety concerns still. I have no idea when it will be fixed and completely reopened. Breakwater Bait and Tackle, the pier bait shop, will open May 1. I’m hoping to see movement on fixing the pier soon. I heard through the grapevine the pharmaceutical company offered to pay to rebuild the pier once. Has anyone in parks gone back and asked them if they would? I mean, it seems like a great way to get the pier back to the original footprint and boost some economic impact. The pier is used by that company to collect seawater to make Milk of Magnesia.

Soon, hopefully, the bluefish show up in that area of the pier, then it should be full of fish and anglers, but we will see. So far not much has occurred but you never know. Like I always say, get out and fish, don’t wait for a report. Sometimes those gator blues show up for a couple days close to shore and that is it for the year. Everyone would like to see the big schools come back in blitzes along the beaches.

Drum are coming to Delaware soon enough. The charters are all taking trip bookings now in Lewes. Captain’s Lady out of Bowers Beach starts up their drum trips on May 1. Get booked today for single angler walk-on trips or groups. Surf anglers are catching drum, mostly on the southern part of Assateague Island. Chincoteague has great surf fishing access at the refuge at the end of the parking lot. There is also the lower part of Assateague you can drive out onto with the proper permit but it is a very limited area. I don’t like the vehicle limits at Assateague, but I understand the need and because of that it is an amazing place. Delaware could take a lesson or two from limiting vehicle access with a gate. I’ll die on this hill saying this over and over again.

The surf fishing in Delaware is skates and maybe a dogfish, but striped bass are passing our shorelines every day headed north. The Delaware Bay and River are seeing some great striped bass action up north. Bloodworms or bunker chunks are the best baits. Shad makes great bait too. That happens to be one of the fish the bass are following around for food. Black drum action will happen soon. We are still in any day mode waiting for the water to warm up a bit. Once drum start really hitting off all of Assateague then they show up in the Delaware Bay. But there are always early arrivals so yeah, I’d be fishing. I hardly need an excuse to fish, I just need the time off work.

Look for schooling bass in the waterways around structure feeding heavily. Swim shads and small bucktails are perfect for schooling striped bass. Fishbites’ fight club smaller plastics are great for striped bass and weakfish. The flounder hammer the larger curly tails.

Flounder are slowly working their way toward the inland bays. South of us as usual they are showing up first. Ocean City, Maryland, reported a couple last week. Any day now!

Go fish and be that angler who finds out first.

Freshwater anglers are starting to drop catfish. Snakeheads will be up next, with some already on the warmer days. And there are plenty of stocked trout left to catch.