Cape May Fishing Report May 24-25

Friday afternoon I headed down to Cape May a little early so I could drop off my entry form for the Save the Summer Flounder opening day fishing tournament. Saturday the 24th I headed out of the slip by myself at 6:00 AM heading towards Buoy 19 and Miah Mall. The wind was from the North West and I was heading straight into it. The ride out took almost 2 hours. I fished in between Buoy 19 and the Mall from 8:00 AM until 2:00 PM and only caught 2 short flounder and 2 skates. The water temperature was about 59 degrees. The ride in was much smoother, and it only took about 40 minutes to get back to the canal.

On Sunday the 25th Capt. Dave and Chuck headed up towards the Miah Mall they were out of the slip by 7:00 AM. I took it slow and didn’t leave my slip until 10:00AM. The ride out was a lot easier since the wind had died down. Once I got up by Buoy 19 I called Dave on the radio to see where he was and how he was doing. At that point he had quite a few shorts and 1 keeper. I hung out by Buoy 19 for about 40 minutes then Capt. Dave strongly suggested I move up toward where he was because he had just picked up two more nice keepers. I was able to get up there in about 5 minutes but I had missed the party. I ended up with 3 throw backs and three skates. The water had warmed up to about 63 degrees on Sunday.

May 3, 2008 – Back in at the Bree Zee Lee

The boats are out of storage and in there rightful positions at the old Bree Zee Lee Yacht Club. I actually picked Offshore Bites up about a month ago, and took it home to get it ready for the season. The boat didn’t need a lot of work, mostly just bottom painting it and waxing it. Of course the Exhaust Bellows popped off again, we tried several times to get in on but it wouldn’t stay on. I ended up paying the guys at RJ Marine Service located at the marina to get it back on. The guys at RJ Marine Service were nice enough to pick up my boat from the canvas shop and tow it over to their shop, saving me a trip down to Cape May just to move the boat about a mile.

Over the winter I had dropped the old Bimini Top and enclosure off at Nor’easter Marine Canvas down in Cape May. Clint the owner told me he could start on the top, but needed the boat on site to work on the enclosure. I got the boat to him around mid-April and he finished the job in a week. The new top is green. So far I’d say I like the job, the seams and zippers line up nicely. He also added zippers to the front windshield so now we don’t have to pop out the entire window to let air in.

From the reports I heard the fishing hasn’t been great lately. When the guy in the bait shop tells you there’s not much out there, you know it can’t be good. Capt. Dave and Chuck went out for a little while in the back bay on Saturday, and caught a small bluefish and a flounder. Flounder season hasn’t started yet.

Lets all welcome out new Dock Neighbor Capt Rob, and his boat “Better Days”. Capt Rob is from the same hometown, and was one of the winners of the Mid-Atlantic 500K last year.

Here is a late breaking "Man on the Docks" fishing report from Capt. Dave. It looks like Chuck is back in the swing of things after a difficult off season. We ended the regular season last year by toasting the end of the season at the Harbor View Tiki Bar. From there things quickly eroded for Chuck. Here's of photograph of Chuck and a striper he caught 2 weeks ago.