The present surf water temperature is floating around 52-degrees and no one has to guess about the air temperatures. It’s cold out there. Striped bass are being caught in the surf but it’s nothing one can count on. Some nice ones have been caught this past weekend off Ocean City and Assateague Island beaches, mostly on bait rigs. Dogfish and skates have been keeping bait fishermen busy and it’s likely that trend will prevail for a while longer. There are still a lot of big striped bass north of us off New Jersey at places like the mouth of Raritan Bay. We’ll just have to wait and see if they pass our coast far beyond any mortals casting range or they bless us with traveling close to the beaches.

Fishermen are catching good numbers of striped bass inside the inlet and up to the Route 50 Bridge. The ratio of shorts can be high at times but it sure is a lot of fun. Casting swimming shad lures or drifting live eels are accounting for most of the fish caught. Fishermen are still finding quite a few hickory shad in the inlet and even though they can’t be kept they are fun to catch. Anglers are catching them on shad darts, small flashy spoons or weighted flies. Fishermen are still catching a few tautog off the bulkheads and jetties but this fishery is now closed and the fish must be released.

The big boats venturing out to the wreck sites have been blessed with several days of calm weather and captains and fishermen made the most of it. Limit catches of sea bass for all on board were not uncommon this past week.