Fishing report for 5/8/23

Opening week of Fluke season 2023 was pretty dismal in our bay. Mother nature definitely had it out for us with all the wind and rain. Seems mother nature is finally starting to agree with us this week and I expect keeper fluke numbers to jump dramatically.

Starting with the bay reports its been a little lacking.  Heard mostly short fluke from the few reports I have gotten. 8-15ft of water depth seemed to be the ticket last week. Bigger gulp especially, brighter the better. Heard a few fish on minnows but with water clarity best bait was mackerel or squid. Striper were still somewhat active at night around the bridges and piers on soft plastics. Some bigger bass still around the bridges as well but mainly on eels.

Inlet reports are drastically different. Haven't heard much at all for Great egg inlet. A few fluke but mostly smooth dogfish. Corson's on the other hand has been firing off day and night. Corson's has been loaded with just about everything this past week. Bluefish made an appearance this past week anywhere from 2-8lbs, Plastics and mackerel seem to be the baits of choice. Smooth Dogfish had made their push into the inlet to spawn. These are HUGE females hearing upwards of 4 feet long. No rhyme or reason, if there is bait out there on the bottom they will eat it. Lots of keeper fluke were caught from the sand down in Corson's mainly on gulp. Still striper around during the day on soft plastics, mostly schoolies. There has been a large number of over 30 inch fish caught in the dark especially on mag darters.

Surfside has actually been pretty decent. With some early arrivals of fish I think this is going to be a great summer on the beach. Striper and black drum have been the big catches all on clam it seems (frozen or fresh). Smooth dogfish are also all over the surf and feeding heavily, most being 3-4 feet long as well. Kingfish showed up early and in fairly decent numbers, all on bloods with the majority of fish being 13-15 inches! The shocker is BLOWFISH showed up. Heard quite a few in the surf but that's a rarity for us.

Shout out to Colin Halliday who sent in the fishing report image. He had a night of a lifetime about a week and a half ago in the back bay on eels! 5 fish 40 inches and up. Congrats Colin.