A completely new tog season opened on July 1. DNREC Secretary Shawn Garvin signed an Emergency Order changing the tog season in three ways. First is the length of the season, which will now run from July 1 to Dec. 31 and then Jan. 1 to May 15. Second, the bag limit for tog will drop to four fish per day, and third, the size limit will increase to 16 inches. The Emergency Order was necessary to comply with the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Tog.
While the increase in size limit and decrease in bag limit are more restrictive, the length of the season will increase by 48 days. Exactly how that will play out remains to be seen. In the past, most folks targeted tog during the colder months, but perhaps with the lack of flounder and sea bass, some will switch over to tog.
Summer striped bass season
The summer striped bass season is now open and will run until Aug. 31. Anglers are allowed two stripers between 20 and 25 inches out of the Delaware Bay and its tributaries. For the purposes of this season, the Freeman Bridge is considered the end of the Lewes and Rehoboth Canal as a tributary of the Delaware Bay. I had positive reports on Sunday from anglers fishing the Outer Wall as well as the rivers in New Castle and Kent counties.
There are plenty of small stripers around, but even with the good numbers there will be quite a few fish caught that must be released. The survival rate for catch-and-release rockfish is not very good when the water temperature is above 70 degrees. I was part of a study on catch-and-release rockfish when I lived in Virginia Beach. We found that stripers caught on live spot and then released during the summer in the lower Chesapeake Bay had an almost zero survival rate. We had research people from Virginia Institute Marine Studies on board, and they took blood samples that indicated the fish would not survive. These rockfish were in the 30- to 35-inch range and the water temperature was close to 80 degrees.
I do think smaller rockfish, like those we will be targeting until Aug. 31, have a better chance to live after release. Still, it is a good idea to handle rockfish that don’t fit into the slot with care. Use a wet towel to hold the fish while removing the hook or lure. If you are fishing with bait, use only non-offset circle hooks. All lures should have the barbs crushed. I did this when I ran charters, and those crushed barbs made it so much easier to remove the hook from the fish, the customers and the captain.
You can buy hook-removing tools that make it very easy to take a fish off a circle hook. These devices have a T handle and a small open loop at the end. You hold the fishing line in one hand and the tool in the other with the loop at the hook. Flip the fish over the line and the hook comes right out, and you never touch the fish.
If you want to target rockfish in the summer, you will need to be up early and on the water before sunrise. While some fish will be caught at high noon, most will be taken in the low light of early morning or late evening. Rockfish like structure, and the Inner and Outer walls, the Ferry Wall, the Savannah Road bridge, and the marsh banks along the Lewes and Rehoboth Canal and the Broadkill River will all produce. My favorite lure is a Rebel WindCheater with a blue or black back. The model with the red head and white body will also work. Cast the plug as close as possible to the rocks or the bank and retrieve at a steady pace. The best baits will be live minnows or peeler crab. Jigs with Gulp! will also attract rockfish.
Fishing report
The offshore fishing went downhill over the weekend. Boats that ran to the deep had much better luck with tilefish than tuna. Blue and white marlin are beginning to show up along with some dolphin.
The inshore lumps provided a few bluefin tuna, and from what I hear, chunking is beginning to take over from trolling. Once this technique takes hold, trolling will be very difficult.
Flounder fishing was perhaps a bit better at site 11, the Old Grounds and along the Buoy Line from A to B. Flounder were also caught from the Lewes and Rehoboth Canal and the fishing pier at Cape Henlopen State Park, but I fear this will soon end as the water temperature increases.
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Eric Burnley is a Delaware native who has fished and hunted the state from an early age. Since 1978 he has written countless articles about hunting and fishing in Delaware and elsewhere along the Atlantic Coast. He has been the regional editor for several publications and was the founding editor of the Mid-Atlantic Fisherman magazine. Eric is the author of three books: Surf Fishing the Atlantic Coast, The Ultimate Guide to Striped Bass Fishing and Fishing Saltwater Baits. He and his wife Barbara live near Milton, Delaware. Eric can be reached at Eburnle@aol.com.
