Dueling Inlets - Delaware and Maryland 22May21

[Johnsfolly]

Since I missed getting a photo of what I believed was a hickory shad in NC, I did not add that as a caught species for this year. The shifting of our FL trip  and my work made me miss the big portion of the spawning runs of hickory shad in the local rivers. I had a back up plan and that was the Indian River Inlet in Delaware or the Ocean City Inlet in Maryland. In the spring and early summer the shad will come into the inlet along with schoolie bluefish to feed during the incoming tides. 

We headed out to Delaware yesterday. I felt that gave us the best chance at some shad. We picked up our DE licenses and some live sand fleas in case we decided to bottom fish. When we arrived there were cars everywhere and the beaches were packed. Though the inlet was not really crowded, we got pushed to a wider section of the inlet. That gives the fish room to spread out and be more diffuse. Usually when there is a big school of shad in the inlet you can see then progress towards you as anglers get bit upcurrent from you. Having caught fish in this section before, I wasn't real concerned about getting some fish. I was concerned that the water was dirty, but we began fishing it was 1:30. I had rods rigged with tandem shad darts in red/white or green/yellow, or a dart and a spoon, and a slab spoon.

We made lots of casts and Sue lost a fish and then worked hard to eventually get out of the rocks with all her gear. We fished for a couple of hours and tried lots of combinations of lures and lost a few as well. As we saw folks up current from us catching shad, we reconned the area and saw a lot of small silver spoons. We switched and Livie got bit but lost it near the rocks. After 3 hours of flaying the water with no more bites and more than a bit for frustration, we decided to make the run to OC to try the piers down there. 

Normally this would have been a 35 to 40 min trip. As we got into OC, we noticed folks with lawn chairs lining the roads and the loud roars of muscle cars at every street light. It turned out to be a cruising weekend which created really heavy traffic. I will admit that on the way through town there were lots of cool classic cars, hot rods, and well over a hundred Mustangs on the way to the pier. There are several piers in OC. The one that held the most promise was the Oceanic a pay pier right near the mouth of the inlet. We ususally catch a bunch of variety and there were good chances of shad or bluefish. With the cruising weekend in full blast we felt that it would be impossible to find parking within a mile of the pier. So we decided to check out the 4th street pier which is a free pier in the fullest sense. Not only do you not need to pay to fih it you also did not need a MD fishing license either.

This pier is usually good for black sea bass and a tautog or two. Livie hadn't caught a sea bass yet and I needed a tog. So we fished high/low bait rigs with bloodworm scented Fish Bites baits or the sand fleas. I still wanted a shad so was fishing a tandem jig rig and spoon combination. It took a while but livie caught a really small sea bass. May 15th was the opening of sea bass season and this one was just a bit shy, maybe 8 inches shy of a keeper 😅.

Regardless it was a fish and we had not held one yet on this trip. Sue followed suit while fishing the sand fleas when she double hooked this female tog, in the mouth and back🙄. The photo doesn't show but she was 13 to 14 inches in length. Also a bit shy of the 16 inch minimum size and even if it was they could not be harvested until June 30th.

Livie caught more small and smaller sea bass (I think that she has only caught sea bass at this pier). Sue caught another tog, this time a 15 to 16 inch male.

At this point I was still skunked and had been switching to a big jig rod for flounder, the shad rod, a fish bites rod... So Sue give me the sand flea rod and instructions on how far she was casting and what she did with the baits. So I gave her my fish bites rigged rod in exchange and she hooks a hickory shad. You can't make this stuff up. It was fouled, but still 🙄

Followed that with a bunch of small sea bass. I needed a fish badly, since both Livie and Sue were now hiding their catches to not anger me. I switched back with Sue just so that I could feel the small sea bass bites, but got nothing. Sue landed another smaller female tog while I had just missed two feable bites. I took the sand flea rod back and by 7:15 on a slack tide I felt a couple of nice tugs and I set the hook! I could tell that it was a decent fish and kept the rod tip way above my head to keep it out of the rocks. Livie got it netted and I landed a really nice male tog. My 60th species of the year! At last.

Also a look at why you don't lip these guys to land them.

I even caught a samll sea bass. We saw earlier what looked like a tog break the surface. Weird behavior for a bottom fish. Later saw a big male chasing another male at the surface. Must be spawning season

 It really was the tale of two inlets, except it was the worse of tides and the best of tides.

 

[Quillback]

That's pretty neat that there are those piers to fish from.   Have you thought of going down to the Outer Banks in the fall to fish?  Always hear that there can be some great surf fishing there in the fall.

[Johnsfolly]

55 minutes ago, Quillback said:

That's pretty neat that there are those piers to fish from.   Have you thought of going down to the Outer Banks in the fall to fish?  Always hear that there can be some great surf fishing there in the fall.

We fished Jeannettes pier on Nags Head last Sept. Didn't  have time to fish the beach since we were headed to Myrtle Beach. Have plans to get down that way sometime this year. You know that a post will follow 😉