Spot burning is not a concern these days; the secrets are out

Several years ago, a young man caught a nice striper at Broadkill Beach and put a photo of himself with his catch on Facebook. Oh, my goodness, from the response he received, you would have thought he was a reporter for a major magazine who was allowed to sit in on a top-secret military briefing. Instead, he was just a nice guy who was justifiably proud of a good catch from a location that everybody knows about.

As a guy who makes his living reporting on when, where and how people catch fish, I am very sensitive to spot burning. Most of the time I will identify locations such as ocean or bay structure, unless the person has told me he or she caught their fish at the Old Grounds, Massey’s Canyon, Site 10 or some other location.

A long time ago, my editor at Outdoor Life, Vin Sparano, contacted me with a request. It seems one of his copy editors was going to be vacationing in Rehoboth along with her girlfriend and he asked, could I find them a good charter boat to fish from? Naturally, I set them up with the late Capt. John Nedelka.

This is when both of us were much younger, and I told John if we left South Shore Marina with two young ladies on board, God only knows the stories that would be told by the time we returned. To prevent this, we took my son Ric along.

Now, John had a book of numbers that was worth its weight in gold. In there were the numbers of three sunken ships that he found while setting out tub trawls for cod. That is where he took us on a beautiful summer day.

It seems the ladies were excellent anglers, and we all had a great time catching black sea bass on Stingsilvers. I even caught a couple of small tog.

John knew he could trust me to keep quiet about the location of our successful trip. We were friends long before he was a charter captain, and even if we had just met, I would never disclose such close-kept secrets.

How long ago was this, you ask? Well Ric was 10 or 12 at the time, and he will be 53 in May.

I get a kick out of some people who think they have discovered some new location, and they must guard it with their lives. Believe me, there are no secret spots left in Delaware. Getting back to Broadkill Beach, the late Horse Cochran was catching big trout there every spring before most of you were born.

There are no sure-fire spots at Indian River Inlet, but there are locations where you have a better chance of catching a fish. You have to read the current and see how your lure or bait is going to react to the flow.

My favorite location is just west of the bridge on the north side, but not before you get to the handicap pier. On the southside, I like to fish where the beach and the inlet come together. The sand washes through the rocks, and if I can work my bucktail along the sand on the inlet side, it often will find a willing taker.

Back before I gave up walking on the jetty rocks, I fished as far out as I could on either side and allowed my bucktail or plug to work in the current, unless there was bird activity, and then I would cast in that direction.

The addition of our reef sites has changed how we fish Delaware Bay. We used to work Brown Shoal, Brandywine Light and other natural structure, but now all we have to do is run to one of the reef sites. If the first one proves barren, we just run to the next one.

The only structures that remain from the old days are the Inner and Outer walls. We still fish them the same way, by anchoring off and then sending a weight into the rocks to hold the boat over what you hope will be productive bottom. I have never had the nerve to set up my boat like that, although I have been on the Karen Sue and the Grizzly when they did so.

I much prefer to move along the Outer Wall and cast toward it with a plug, such as a Rebel WindCheater, looking for bluefish, trout and stripers. This is the same way we fished along the four islands at the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel.

There is a very nice rip at the north end of the Outer Wall that can be worked with a bucktail or Stingsilver. It makes up well on the incoming tide and may hold blues, trout, stripers and flounder.