_sports _

outdoors with lou Rodia ^

Fine Fishing Ahead , but for How Long?

The time is now. A glance at the calendar indicates that there is a drawing down in the availability of days in which we can expect fine fishing. There is a decided crispness in the air. It will put a chill in the w'ater, especially back in the shallow areas behind the barrier islands. When that water temperature drops, two things start to happen. One is that fish start to move. The other is that bait also starts to move. As the bait funnels out of the inlets, fish gather to greet and eat it. How good that fishing can be depends on fish availability and the

severity of the weather. Right now we have a good available supply of fish and we have had a stretch of good weather. WHAT KINDS of fish can expect??? Bluefish, fit one, will become a sun item as the mullet and shiners start out of the Jjack bays. Fluke will hang around in the inlets and along the beachfront for quite a while until descending temperatures move them offshore and south. Weakfish will also do the same thing. Of the three, blues and weaks still stay around the longest. Since they are in plentiful supply north of us, we should see

lots of movement along the beachfront. Those weakfish being caught in the ocean at present are not migration fish, as we see it. Those are spill-over fish from the bays and weaks that have been driven out of the back waters by extremely high water temperatures. FROM NOW until somewhere in mid to late November the weakfish will be catchable in the surf, around the jetties, and somewhere between the surf line and 40 to 50 feet of water. And now that the water temperature had dropped a little, they will move back into the back bays where they will be available. Delaware Bay's upper reaches have copious amounts of weakfish. They will remain in the bay as long as we do not get jolted by a series of hard blows which chill the bay and muddy it up. And. when those fish move out of Delaware Bay, it will be bonanza time again along the oceanfront. There is a critical key in all of this. It is water temperature. Second, there is water quality. As long as storms do not churn up the water too much, fishing should remain excellent for ' at least two more months and then, even longer. WE HAVE a fascination for fall fishing. It stems from a long-time affair with weakfish and about 35 years ago, we found out that they could be caught well into November in the back bays, especially at night. There are several places where weakfish can be caught at night. One is under bridges, piers and docks where lights play on the water at night. The lights draw bait, which in. turn draws weaks (and blues and striped bass at times). The fish lie on the edges of the lighted areas and hit 'an assortment of baits and lures. ^~"We have fished weaks at night under the lights with bucktails, Touts( surface and swimming plugs, Hopkins lures, Atom poppers and imitation eels. We have fished live and dead bunkers, live and dead eels, shedder crab, squid, shiners, live minnows, spot, mullet, and the shiny underbelly of a snapper blue. All have caught weakfish. TWO UNUSUAL lures have worked well for us. < Both are fresh water items. One is a shad dart. This tiny lure at times has caught weakfish for us as big as 10 pounds. The other lure works well at times when we fish it just inside the shadow line. It is the regular fresh water jitterbug. The lure was designed for fresh water bass fishifig, but on quiet nights when there is no wind ripple on the water. It does a number on weakfish. Why such a wide a&sortment of baits for weakfish??? Mainly because they are highly selective feeders at times. We have gone through stages where the secret to getting weaks to bite at night was to" fish a live menhaden as big as your shoe. A FEW NIGHTS later at * the same location, the same tide and weather con-

ditions called for use of a shad dart less than an inch long. Why? The fishing changed because the food supply changed. Big bunkers moved out and grass shrimp were plentiful and the fish changed his feeding habits. It can happen over night. We get drawn into weakfish conversations a lot. Sometime during the talk-fests we get the stories about how the fish were plentiful, readable on the fish finder, or visible in the water. Yet, they were biting spasmodically, if at all. And this is the nature of the fish, jf If you feve had this happen, did you ever examine the stomach contents of the fish you manage to catch to see what the fish are feeding on? Trout fishermen in fresh water do if all the time. It may give ''you a clue as to the size and kind of bait and/or lure to use to up your fish production. WE'LL BE AT the Wetlands Institute for two days (Sept. 15 and 16) working at answering questions concerning Jersey Cape fishing. We'll have samples of some of the things we fish with. We'll have rigs, rods, reels and incidental tackle to show you. Feel free to stop in during the festival to chat. There is a lot to see and do during this event. Come into the booth and swap a few fishing yarns. We can always listen to another "one that got away" story. We have a lot of those to tell you, too. REPORTS: One bay hot spot that has been producing has been the east edge of the anchorage. Weaks to nine pounds and , fluke to eight pounds were in the catch made by one private boat which fished there. Dave Bauer, of Pine Hill, caught 45 fluke and Stan Lenkiewicz of Philadelphia decked 58 on the Wildwood III with Capt. Ed Olsen out of Blake's Dock, Wildwood Crest. Steve Durso of Springfield, Pa., boated a 171* lb. bluefish on a night trip with Capt. Charles Selby on the Rainbow. Daytime fluke catches have been a bonanza, according to Capt. Selby. Dave McConaghy of Blackwood was a high hooker with 51 fluke. Lois Rodrigues of Villas, posted a 17-lb. pool winning blue on a night trip on the R oyal Flush out of r Wildwood Crest. Carl Perkhamner of Harveys Lake, Pa. caught 30 blues. Day four-hour trips have been producing -fluke and snapper blues in good numbers. Ed Myers, of Philadelphia, took a pool with a five-lb. fluke and Don Kelly of Villas had 35 fluke on one four-hour trip. SEA ISLE City anglers are also enjoying good fluke and -weakfish action along the beach. Capt. Neill Bobbins of the Capt. Rob bins said Jack Rucker and Bill Marion of Philadelphia caught 64 blues from four to 10 lb. Night trips are set for Friday and Saturday only through September. The Capt. Robbins will sail daily at 8 a.m. Four anglers boated 92 fluke plus a few weakfish on one outing. ^ The Uptown String Band charter on the Big Jim II out' of Cape May was led by

Lea Giacabetti with a 44 lb. sea bass. Tom Kenny was high hook with 32 fluke. Metzer Electric took over 450 fluke on a Happy , Days charter. Joe Metzger Sr. won the pool with a three-lb. fluke and had a high hook of 50 fish. Happy Days fares are fishing within minutes from the dock. Sea Star Capt. Bob Schumann said excellent fluke and weakfish action is available just off the Cape May beach. Weaks go to two lb. and fluke average 14 to two lb. Pools go to fluke up to five lb. Anthony Conran and Jerry and Jim O'Conner teamed for 96 fluke and two blues. Dan Guss, skipper of the Huntress out of South Jersey Marina reported that the Rocky Introcaso and Jim Madden group along with sons and nephews Rocky Jr., Matt, Brian, John. Pete, Mike and Patrick, teamed for 133 fluke. They threw back

quite a few small fish. The boys outfished the dads by better than three to one. Capt. John Pop pert of the Fiesta reports excellent night blue catches. John Walsh and Mary' Wesley of Wildwood teamed for 69 blues six to 12 lb. Day fishing has been good for fluke. Miss Chris Dock anglers are reporting mixed bag fishing. Fluke, bluebish, weakfish, and a number of semi-tropical exotics have been weighed in. Lewis Breitenbtch of Philadelphia caught a kingfish on a bay trip. Ray Van Der Veur of Gladwyne, Pa. caught a lizard fish. A Spanish makerel was boated by John Van Eachen of Album, Ala.Barb Reichert of North Cape May boated a two-lb. triggerfish. Two cod were also reported. Bob Lerfold of Rio Grande weighed in a 104-Ib. and a 7-lb. 11-oz. cod. Bob was fishing his boat the Hot Spot.

.jersfy Cape 'fycquet <f!ub SUMMER SCHEDULE & NAUTILUS Full rar>ge of equipment including abdominal machine I FIRST WORKOUT IS COMPLIMENTARY | Can for an appointment

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ALL TIMES Mon fri 8 8 Sot 8AM 5PM Su" 8 a m i P M Coll for reservations & information MASSAGE by Linda H Foster j| Coll lor- Appointment lues Thurs onfl Alternate Fn SHOWERS, SAUNA 465-7411 Crest Haven Road Cape May Court House. N.J. 08210 Cape May County ALMANAC SEPTEMBER

MOON PHASES/POSITIONS The Moon's affect on Ihe Tide u greatest when closest to Earth I in perigee I and when in direct alignment with Sun £ earth (full £ new moon phases I On and about these dates, low pressure systems and/or strong winds (depending upon direction) may result in flooding, and extremely low tides Moon Phases First Quarter Z Fall Mooa !• Last Quarter 18 New Moon . M Perigee 24 Apogee II TIDE TABLE Computed for Cape May City beachfront, for other areas, see Correction Tim#» DATE HIGH LOW .2 Wed 9:49—10:05 3:96— 3:55 13 Tbu 10:24—10:40 4:07- 4:29 14 Fri 10:55—11:14 4:34- 5:01 15 Sat 11:34-11:53 5:01- 5:35 16 Sun —12:14 5:33- S B 17 Man 12:39- 1:02 6 09- 7:24 18 TUe 1:34- 1 58 7:10- 8 42 19 Wed 2:39- 3:07 8:33- 9:52 20 Thu 3:54- 4 18 9:50-10:50 21 Fn 5:06- 5:26 10:54-11:44 22 Sat 6:06- 6:27 11:5223 Sun 7:01-7:16 12:36-12:50 24 Mon 7:50- 8:07 1:26- 1 44 25 Tue 8:36- 8:55 2.15- 2:37 26 Wed 9:22- 9:42 3>01- 3:27 27 Tbu 10:11—10 32 3:47- 4:16 28 Fri 11:03-11 25 4:32- 5:06 29 Sat 11:54- 5:19- 5:55 30 Sun 12:16-12 49 6:10- 6:57

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CORRECTION TIMES Compute approximate timej of high £ low water for your area by adding or subtracting the following number of minutei for each tide phase in the Tide Table LOW HIGH Great Egg Harbor Inlet Minus 12 ■' plus 10 Ocean City (9th St Bridge) plus 35 plus 22 Corson Inlet ( bridge) plus 21 plus 7 Sea Isle City i Ludlam Thorn Bridge i plus 66 plus 43 Sea Die City Beach minus 2 minus 21 Towiwend Inlet plus 21 plus 4 Seven Mile Beach plus 15 0 Stone Harbor (Great Channel Bridge) plus 42 plus 40 Hereford Inlet (Angleaea) plus 19 0 Wildwood Beach Minus 2 minus 17 Was t Wildwood (Grassy Channel bridge) plus 46 plus 43 Cape May Harbor plus 1 minus 4 Five Fathom Rank plus 11 plus 1 Cape May Point plus* plus 34 McCne Shoal plus 28 plus 22 Delaware Bay Bayshore Channel i Bay -Canal Junction; plus 31 — plus 36 Miami Beach plus 75 plus 71 Dennis Creek Entrance plus 98 plus 84 Brandywine Shoal Light plus 77 q plus 52

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