Fall into locals’ mode

Hope everyone had a great Labor Day! Despite the bad weather start it turned into a fun weekend. Now we are in locals' summer mode and we hope that goes by much slower; seems like the summer just blew by and we almost missed it.

The Point now open

The Point is now open in Cape Henlopen State Park and we can finally fish our favorite beach. The Point is a great place to fish; you have the option of the ocean side or the bay side - two completely different ways to fish.

There is also the Point itself; if you can cast far enough you can drop your line along the edge of what is basically a giant sand bar in sixty feet of water.

Fish will hang along that edge waiting to ambush fish that come around the corner in the current.

You have to be on your game to fish that area; you can't just toss a weight with bait and hope to hold bottom.

The Cape Henlopen fishing pier is seeing some decent croaker, spot and other small fish action including sea bass, sand perch, weakfish,and stripers. Some of the croaker are finally in the keeper sizes, but many are still too small to keep.

The small bluefish are the tiny bait stealers, if you use an ultralight setup they hit like a freight train.

I have a four-foot bass spinning rod I use for them and it makes for a fun time at the pier or in the surf. Tossing a one-ounce spoon for the mini blues. Lower the drag on the reel and some of the blues will peel a little line off, makes you feel like you've really got something.

Lots of small flounder around the pier and the flats out there with some keepers in the mix. Minnows or Gulp have been the best baits for flounder. Bloodworms or Fishbites on top and bottom rigs for the smaller fish.

Striper season is over

The summer slot striped bass season is over for the Delaware Bay and her tributaries. A lot of slot-sized bass were caught in the Lewes Canal, Canary Creek and Broadkill River.

Now Delaware is back to the normal keeper sizes and a few bass over twenty-eight inches have been landed.

Anything that looks like or mimics a mullet has been the best lure. The mullet are small but the creeks and tidal rivers are full of them. Most shops have fresh mullet, and the bluefish are hammering mullet rigs in the surf.

The larger summer snapper blues seem to be more prevalent on the southern beaches below Dewey Beach.

Thoughts of fat crabs

The crabbing has been excellent with some seriously fat ones being caught. Now that the summer season is over there will be fewer crab pots out there and more crabs to catch. Best part of the year, and when it starts to cool off the crabs will fatten up for a winter's nap; those are the really good ones to catch.

What the future holds

Soon the fall run will be the next big thing to hit Delaware. Until then it is all summer fish.

With the water temperatures still on the cooler than normal side, we are already seeing short striped bass schooling up in preparation for the fall run.

That is some seriously fun fishing. Catching big bass is fun, but I honestly prefer the full onslaught action of short bass on light gear, when it is catch a fish every cast until your arm is like Jell-o. That to me is more fun than landing the big bass.

So sit back and relax. We still have plenty of good summer days ahead of us and hopefully fewer crowds.