Pacemaker Fishing Forum

I left straight from work on Thursday night and hit some nasty traffic. Got to Indian River Inlet around 9:30pm. There was a bite on the North jetty so I walked out as far as I could go, which was only to the first break. It was super crowded at the end, so I didn't even try to get out there.

I fished for about 10 minutes before I picked off a 36" on a 5" Storm shad. Shortly after that, the bite died. I left around 11:30 with just the one striper.



From there I went straight to the CH pier to look for some flounder. Conditions were not ideal, it was windy and the water was dirty,  but there were only a few people on the planks so I gave it a shot. I fished for about 2 hours and only hooked up twice. Once to a tb flounder, the other to a 17-18" trout that fell off when I tried to swing him up him up to the pier. I was using Gulp minnows and Fin-S.

I started Friday morning off with a brief stop at Roosevelt (ugly water and no fish), and from there went to Herring Point to soak some bunker.



The weather was gorgeous, but in 4 hours all I caught were skates. Didn't see anything else caught while I was there, but I heard later that a bunch of stripers were landed later that day.

I think my next stop was the canal, and I didn't catch anything there. I also went to the pier for a little while at some point on Friday afternoon and caught one tb flounder.

Here's a piebald deer that was hanging out around the park entrance.For a second I thought it was a goat. Pretty cool critter.



Friday night I did IRI again. I got there around 7pm to secure a spot near the end of the jetty, since I knew it was going to be a circus out there.  So I got my spot on the rocks and waited out the outgoing and slack tide, and prepared for the incoming bite along with approximately 46 million other people.

Long (and boring) story short, the bite never happened, at least while I was there. I only made about 5 casts over the course of 4.5 hours. It was just too crowded for me to want to throw a line out when there were no signs of fish. I left at about 11:30 and as far as I know there was only one schoolie caught on the North jetty that night. I heard from a friend that there was a bite in the surf that night. Hope you got into 'em Steve.

I think my first stop on Saturday was the canal and some nearby creeks. I caught nothing and saw nothing caught. I don't know what's going on with the flounder, they were just not cooperating at all.

Went for a walk on the pier to see what was going on. There was nothing happening on the pier, but my firend Peter was out there and he told me he hooked a big striper in the surf earlier that morning and saw some others caught as well. Wish I had gone to the surf instead of the canal...my timing sucks.

Next stop was IRI for a shot at some daytime stripers. The end of the North jetty was empty, so I took it. I caught one schoolie on my second cast with a 7" Fin-S, but that was all she wrote. 4 hours later I left without another bite. The weather was still beautiful.



Later that evening I gave the Cape Henlopen surf another shot. I can't really remember how long I was there. I was a little light headed from massive blood loss caused by ungodly numbers of bugs on the beach. There was no wind down there, and the gnats were swarming like I've never seen before. The no-see-ums were so thick you could, um...see um.

Late Saturday night I stopped by the pier and fished for a little bit with nothing to show for it. It was windy, the tide was way low, and the water was still dirty. My mind was still on stripers so rather than keep fishing in those conditions I left to check out IRI.

Took a walk on the North side to see if the fish had returned. They hadn't. I talked to a few anglers leaving and they said it was dead. I was dog tired so I left and got some sleep instead. I hope nothing was caught that night, but knowing my luck the blitz probably started right after I pulled out of the parking lot.

Sunday morning I tried the surf one last time. Soaked bunker from 6:30am to 10:30am and only caught a couple skates. Didn't see anybody else catch anything either. After that I made a final stop to fish a tidal creek. Still had no luck with the flounder though. Fished for a couple hours and headed home from there.

Not a whole lot of pullage on this trip but it was a really nice weekend anyway. Can't wait to get back.