Welcome to spring! Shake off the salty winter doldrums and let’s get into the good salt. An early spring is on the menu so let’s get to fishing. If you don’t put in time, you will only hear about bites and miss most of them, but not if you are the one out there fishing. Most of the game is the actual fishing, not the catching. You want guaranteed catches, hit a seafood place by the pound.

The white perch bite has been decent, with some short striped bas in the mix on bloodworms or grass shrimp. These warmer days and colder nights are slowing things down but you can catch. Short striped bass are fun catches around the inland bays and Delaware Bay marsh areas. Some are starting to feed more around the Indian River Inlet, oceanside, but that is slow and they are close to the rocks. Those anglers catching are putting in some time for that window of opportunity. It’s right cold by that water, and while getting sprayed by waves. Wear appropriate gear.

The catch of the week goes to Brady Kenniston, and not for a fish. He caught some amazing pictures of the recent Electron launch at Wallops Island by Rocket Lab via NASA. You know by the time you get done telling people about who did a launch, and who was involved, you are out of breath. I love watching these launches from the Delaware beaches. Brady’s pictures are amazing from the pad or remote shots. The captures with the sun’s glare on the rocket’s red glare is amazing. It looks like liquid fire.

The ocean has returned a great deal of sand to the northside of the Indian River Inlet. I can walk up to the top of the old Coast Guard tower stand. The replenishment for the towns has been delayed a week. Any surf angler would be happy to see that not happen. Meanwhile, the same group is hoping for another gnarly spring nor’easter to carve us up like last year.

The replenishment project at Cape Shores has created some great flats structure at the Cape Henlopen Fishing Pier. The pier has a new bait and tackle vendor which will be announced soon.

Fishing is slow, but starting to pick up. Osprey are here and feeding on bunker along the beaches. I would start fishing for bluefish and migratory striped bass, with bunker chunks. Skates and dogfish will be plentiful. You have to pick through the catches you don’t want to target the catches you do want. That is putting in the time. While you soak some bait, cast spoons and plugs or poppers to make some noise and see if you can entice a swimming bite.

Small flounder are showing up in crab pots with fresh bait. The juveniles live in the back bay estuaries over winter and move out into saltier waters. The adults move in from the ocean. That should be any day now as the water temps increase. Despite the cool nights, inland bay water temperatures are bouncing around 44 to 46 degrees at Masseys Ditch USGS survey station.

The flats at the Cape Henlopen Fishing Pier look great. Many who fly fish or wade fish will appreciate the structure. The shoaling in will make the pier a little more difficult to fish. That could easily be solved by just rebuilding it back to the original length with the T on the end. The amount of money parks loses because that is not there is huge. I hear this complaint from anglers often. They would use the pier here more if it was out into the deeper water. The Ocean City, Maryland, ocean and bay piers get a workout with people because the fishing is much better in that deeper water.

I know three local pier building companies that could do that in a month. Just some food for thought for the powers that be, or need to be building us a longer pier. Maybe start using some of the millions (yearly) in recreational fishing funding monies to build it back. We are using it for one up north. That pier is in a park but should be maintained by angler monies as well.

I finally picked up my Delaware surf fishing tag. I got the full-time tag, too. I’m looking forward to before and after hours fishing on weekends, something I missed when I had the peasant tag. I didn’t have to watch that beach driving video either to get my tag, which was a relief. I mean, I might already have an idea about beach driving.