<b>Port Elizabeth</b>

Summer flounder were still reeled from Delaware Bay and back bays, said Sharon from <b>The Girls Place Bait & Tackle</b>. Keepers might’ve become somewhat scarcer at some spots, but that’ll happen after flounder season’s been open a month. Some of the keepers become caught. Weakfish were around in the bay, and not a lot was reported about fishing in this heat wave. High temperatures are supposed to break beginning Friday. Considerably more customers bought crabbing supplies this past week than before. That seemed to mean crabbing was improving. Crab prices dropped, too. Pretty much all baits are stocked, including plenty of minnows. Minnows, a favorite flounder bait, had been scarce but now seemed in good supply. Shedder crabs were stocked pretty regularly. The Girls Place, located on Route 47, just after Route 55 ends, carries a large supply of bait and tackle, and is the long, one-story, yellow building on the right. It’s on the way to the bay.

<b>Newport</b>

Crabbing wasn’t bad at all during the weekend at <b>Beaver Dam Boat Rentals</b>, Paul said. Experienced crabbers averaged a little more than three dozen keepers per trip, and newbies averaged 1 ½ dozen. The year’s first crabber busheled out. A bushel is the legal limit per day. Someone trapped seven-eighths of a bushel Friday. The number of 5-1/2-inch crabs wasn’t abundant but definitely increased. Bunker caught best through Friday morning. Chicken out-produced later that day. Bunker and chicken caught equally on Saturday. By Monday, bunker worked best. The shop’s crew has noticed that chicken can catch best around full and new moons, when crabs sometimes shed and mate. The theory is that has to do with hormones. Bunker is usually best the rest of the time. The moon was full last Wednesday to Thursday. A couple of customers boated more than 30 white perch apiece from the creek. The perch were sizable. Customers crab and fish from rental boats towed up Oranokin Creek, running past the shop. Telephone and reserve the boats ahead, because they can become booked. Rental kayaks and canoes are available to paddle the scenic creek. Visit <a href=" http://www.crabulousnj.com/Home_Page.php" target="_blank">Beaver Dam’s website</a>.

<b>Fortescue</b>

A charter was going to fish for summer flounder on the bay Sunday but felt under the weather, said Capt. Howard from the <b>Salt Talk</b>. So that trip didn’t sail, and another fished in the days previously, catching a few, not a lot. The bay’s flounder fishing might’ve been improving, but that was difficult to say. Anglers would think the angling could keep picking up in warming water and weather. One local boat that’s been limiting out on flounder on every trip scored a limit of the fish 17 to 24 inches for three anglers Sunday. Seventeen is the legal minimum length for flounder from Delaware Bay in New Jersey. Eighteen is the minimum in most of the rest of the state. Quite a few small bluefish were known to be angled on a flounder trip on one of Fortescue’s party boats this weekend. Little was heard about any other fish from the bay, except a few weakfish that one of the Fortescue party boats caught. That boat fishes along lighthouses with regular customers who bucktail the trout. The Salt Talk used to be a Fortescue party boat. Howard sold that vessel, and the new Salt Talk is a charter boat for up to four passengers.

<b>Cape May</b>

Good catches of summer flounder were made on Delaware Bay last week, said Nick from <b>Hands Too Bait & Tackle</b>. The good reports came from farther up the bay, like from Miah Maul to Cross Ledge along the shipping channel. The fish probably also bit closer to shore. He expected flounder in back bays to begin to migrate to the ocean after this week. That’s because back bays were warming, and the fish annually seek the ocean’s cooler water. Delaware Bay is deeper and cooler than back bays. In the surf, sometimes kingfish were banked. So were small bluefish. Flounder and weakfish were sometimes nabbed from the surf. Big sharks like sandbars and sand tigers chewed in the surf in evenings. Those two species are required to be released. Sharks like that are probably swimming Delaware Bay. Cape May is located at the confluence of Delaware Bay and the ocean. Surf anglers fish both in the town.

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