Summer flounder fishermen continue to face more stringent regulations each season in their pursuit of their favorite game fish. Photo by Milt Rosko.

But very restrictive regulations, with a one-fish bag limit, discouraged many anglers from seeking this fine game fish -- as did the depleted population.

BLUEFISH
Bluefish are cyclical, and several times over the years we’ve experienced times when it was nearly impossible to catch one.

Fortunately, that’s hasn’t been the case in recent years, with the population comprised of a mix ranging from the recently hatched snapper blues to huge numbers of “alligators” often topping the 15-pound mark. Importantly, there were plenty of all sizes of bluefish in between, which bodes well for 2008 and the years ahead.

Bluefish will usually arrive off the Maryland and Delaware coasts during May. When the lilacs are blooming, the fishing is often fast and furious. During the early season, blues will regularly raid the beaches from Chincoteague to Lewes, where they’ll decimate schools of menhaden, which are also migrating.

Blues that are migrating offshore are concentrating on a different kind of forage, specifically schools of Atlantic mackerel, also migrating to their summer quarters off Canada.

For a few weeks, anglers will grow arm-weary at Fenwick Shoal, the Sugar Lump and myriad lumps and ridges scattered just a few miles offshore, since there’s often schools of herring and sand eels to satisfy the ravenous appetites of the hungry blues.

While the main schools move north, some will settle in as resident fish, choosing to spend the summer in local waters. Those heading north dally at the mouth of Delaware Bay, continue north while stopping at such renowned Jersey hotspots as Atlantic City Ridge, Barnegat Ridge, Manasquan Ridge, the Klondike, the Mud Buoy and 17 Fathoms. Many bluefish will also invade Raritan Bay, but the major schools will head east off Long Island and wind up in New England waters for the summer.

But plenty of blues will still decide to summer in Mid-Atlantic waters, where they provide both boaters and surfcasters with fine action. The boating fraternity brings into play a variety of techniques, including trolling, chumming, bottom-fishing, and jigging. It’s all fun, as blues are always vicious and most always hungry.

Along the surf, schools of bluefish will raid the beaches at irregular intervals, so patience is an important consideration. Local fish traveling along the surf are often taken by fishing a mullet rig, with a cork float suspending the bait just off the bottom.

But the real fun fishing comes later in the summer and early fall when mullet, menhaden, bay anchovies and other small forage species vacate the bays and rivers. It’s then that bluefish travel in wolf packs, and it’s not unusual to see them slashing through the bait schools as they feed. It’s definitely the most exciting time to be surf-fishing.

SUMMER FLOUNDER
Ah, the summer flounder, what a fine fish! If June and I were to vote on our favorite species for both catching and eating, it would have to be the summer flounder or fluke. We’ve enjoyed catching these tough flatfish all of our lives.

But in 2008, we’ll have to concentrate and do things very differently from the past. To target those 14- to 17-inch flatfish, it’s important that anglers simply forget everything they’ve done in the past. With larger size limits all along the coast, it’s important to target legal-sized fish and whenever possible, to leave the smaller ones alone.

This means two things, both of which we’ve been practicing the last couple of seasons while boat-fishing: We avoid the bays, rivers and inshore sandy bottom areas frequented by the small flounder.