Black Drum in Delaware Bay

[Sam]

A spring run of black drum from Delaware Bay to Great Bay is not exactly pushing striped bass out of the way, but it is certainly adding to the excitement of area fishing. Striped bass are plentiful and tautog are increasing, and drum seem to be heading toward a peak around the full moon on Wednesday. Capt. Bob Cope has been running the charter boat Full Ahead to the cove of Delaware Bay every day, so he's got the fishing action there figured out. His score Friday was seven keeper striped bass with nine or 10 returns and one drum.

The bass topped out at 26 pounds. Earlier this week, the Full Ahead racked up a 74-pound drum. Cope operates his boat out of Utsch's Marina in Cape May. According to a report from Jim's Tackle in Cape May, Cope and many of the Cape May-area captains have been fishing the area of Bug Light off the cove, including the Punk Grounds, Pin Top and Horseshoe. The water temps in that area was 51-52 degrees Friday. Surf fishing for bass improved over the past week at Brigantine. Riptide Bait and Tackle in Brigantine weighed in eight keeper bass Friday and a 20-pound drumfish.

Joe Keys had one keeper among the 12 bass, and Dan Denny got his first bass, a 14-pounder. Jim DiCecco at Riptide reported that the good fishing in the Brigantine suds attracted well-known local boat anglers Norm Wagenheim and Carl Stock to the sand Friday. They each had a couple, according to DiCecco.

Riptide also weighed in eight or nine drum in the last few days. Wesley Bandy at Gibson's Bait and Tackle in Sea Isle City weighed in a 20-pound drum caught from the sod bank between the two bridges in the back of Corson Inlet. Great Bay and Little Egg Inlet had a run of drum this week. Striped bass action throughout the area can be characterized the same way: a lot of shorts with an occasional keeper mixed in. That's the way it was described at the Angler's Club Fishing Pier in Margate, the back bays of Avalon and in the surf at Long Beach Island.

Dolphin Dock in Somers Point weighed a 17-pound striped bass caught Friday by Dave Woods. Joan Barrett also reported a 1-pound, 15-inch winter flounder caught by Noah Gallagher of Petersburg. Rob Barrett and son Ryan have been hooking up with tautog while fishing in the Somers Point area. Dante Bucci, an 11-year-old Northfield resident who twice has won The Press Fishing Contest Youth Division, caught a 14.82 bass while fishing in the Great Egg Harbor River with his dad, George, on Thursday. Brennan Marine, which weighed the catch, also reported a 35 bass caught in the ocean last Saturday with a large spoon trolled near the Great Egg Inlet buoy.

Greg Montgomery of Egg Harbor Township caught a 5.05-pound brook trout in Birch Grove Park. That catch knocked the 4-11 brookie and Matthew Wroniuk of Bridgeton out of first place on The Press Fishing Contest Leaderboard. Steve Colao of Egg Harbor Township entered a 4.73 brown trout for the Freshwater Division of th contest. Both were certified at Dolphin Dock.

Source: Press of Atlantic City: Home