The 2018 fishing outlook

One good thing about the recent weather is that it gives me time to think about the 2018 fishing season. In my fantasy world, the back bays and the Lewes-Rehoboth Canal are full of big flounder, croaker and spot. The surf gives up 20-pound blues and 50-pound rockfish. Black sea bass and tog pave the bottom from B Buoy to the Del-Jersey-Land Reef, and tuna are snapping from the Hot Dog to the canyons.

However, when I step back and look at the reality of the situation, things are not that rosy. Flounder are still in pretty bad shape. Reproduction remains below average, and the only thing that may result in no new regulations is the lack of participation and a low catch for 2017. No news on this until the last of 2017 figures are in sometime in late January or early February.

Flounder breed in the inshore ocean before the adults move to the edge of the Continental Shelf for the winter. The young-of-the-year fry have to make it to the back bays from the ocean, where they live for at least two years. The recent cold spell with hurricane west winds and a sudden drop in water temperature would seem to be a deterrent to this movement. Only time will tell.

Over the past few years, flounder fishing in the Lewes-Rehoboth Canal and the back bays has been very poor. I don’t see much improvement here. The bulk of the flounder catching will remain in the ocean, out of range for small boats like my 16-footer.

Croaker are one of my favorite fish, and there were good numbers of short fish in 2017, so if the winter weather does not result in high mortality, we could have a good season for legal fish. Commercial fishing does hammer these fish pretty good in North Carolina, but this has been going on for years during abundant and sparse population swings.

The number of tiny blues available in 2017 was impressive. If they come back as 3- to 5-pounders in 2018, it will be an epic season. The past two years have seen excellent runs of big blues along the coast during the spring. If this continues, we could have great fishing for blues all year. 

Then there are the ever-mysterious sea trout or weakfish. While we did see very few larger fish to 5 pounds during 2017, I don’t think this is a trend. Every year we have excellent reproduction in Delaware Bay, then they disappear during their winter migration to the south. What happens to the young of the year once they leave Delaware Bay remains a mystery.  

In the 1950s, trout were very scarce in Delaware. By the mid-1960s, they began a comeback, and by the 1980s, we were covered up in big fish. Then they disappeared just as fast as they showed up, and have been gone ever since.

I have heard several reasons for the lack of weakfish, but none of them are valid in my opinion. The idea that predation is the cause never explains how we had so many trout when big blues were chewing their tails off. Trying to blame the water intakes at refineries and power plants won’t fly either, because there are fewer of these operations than we had in the 1970s and ’80s. Like I said, it is a mystery.

It does appear that black sea bass will be in good supply. The latest stock assessment shows overfishing is not occurring and the stock is not overfished. The population is 125 percent above the average. All good news.

Tog are currently being assessed, and the results of this could change our regulations. These fish are more difficult to figure out because they don’t migrate like rockfish, blues, croaker and trout.  Instead of going north and south, tog go east and west. During the winter, they don’t leave their wrecks or reefs; they actually find a safe spot and go to sleep.  

There is some movement from shallow inshore water to deeper structure farther offshore, but exactly who moves and why has yet to be determined. I have had divers tell me there are huge tog inside compartments where they could not possibly get out. Apparently, these fish got in when they were smaller and have stayed there most of their lives. A friend of mine in Virginia has been tagging tog for quite some time. On more than one occasion, he has caught the same tog on the same structure where it was originally tagged.  

Offshore fishing is always a crapshoot. Tuna, marlin, dolphin and wahoo move as the water temperature and structure dictate. Pray for warm-water eddies, and be there when they move in range.