Cape May Fishing  Report 6/16/2012

The weather report for Saturday was not that great. They were calling for a strong East wind and seas in the 2-4 foot range out in the Delaware Bay, and even bigger out in the Ocean. I got up early and drove over by the Ferry station to look at the waters on the bay; at that point they didn’t look too bad. So I headed over to the bait shop and picked up a sandwich at Wawa.

I left the slip just before 7:00 AM and headed towards the canal, which leads to the bay. There wasn’t much boat traffic. About a ½ mile before I reached the Ferry Terminal, I looked out the Port side of the boat and saw a Bald Eagle sitting on a fallen tree branch. This is the 2^nd time I’ve seen an Eagle in NJ. I saw an Eagle in about the same place last year. I slowed the boat down, grabbed my camera, and turned around to try and get a picture. The Eagle took off, and its kind of hard to get a steady shot from the boat. So I turned back around and headed out of the inlet.

By this time the wind had started to pick up and I could see some white caps starting to form in the bay. At first I thought about just turning back, but I persevered and continued my way up the bay. I could only run at about 12 knots and I was heading up to buoy 19 which is about 12.5 miles up the bay. I left all the Ison glass in the enclosure to keep me dry. It took me over an hour to get there, and I hardly saw any other boat traffic the entire time.

The water temperature was about 69 degrees, and the wind was from the East and the tide was just starting to head out. It was a pretty slow day of fishing. I ended up catching 7 small sharks, 1 short flounder and a little tiny sea robin. It was pretty cold and windy at first but the seas died down and it warmed up. I also had a sea turtle out there keeping me company; he would pop his head up every so often.

I decided to call it a day and head for the barn at about 12:30, the ride back in was a lot smoother. It only took me about a ½ hour to get in. Here's a little video footage of the ride back in, I was probably moving at about 20 knots when I shot this.

The closer I got to land the more the wind picked up. As I approached the marina I could see all the flags sticking straight out, the wind must have been blowing at about 20 knots still from the East. When my boat is in the slip it points due West. With the strong wind, I thought docking could be a challenge especially on my own. It took me a few tries to get her in the slip, but it wasn’t too bad.