Instead, we concentrate our fishing efforts around rocky bottom, ridges, wrecks and the myriad artificial reefs located just a few miles from shore along the Maryland, Delaware and Jersey coasts. This is the type of bottom that holds big forage -- such as small scup, sea bass, bergalls, squid, herring, crabs and even young lobster -- on which the bigger summer flounder feed.

Next to come into play are big lures and big baits. Forget the small strip of squid or minnow baits. Instead, choose small live snapper blues, spot and small croaker or menhaden.

But plenty of blues will still decide to summer in Mid-Atlantic waters, where they provide both boaters and surfcasters with fine action.

Instead of a sinker, substitute a chromed ball or torpedo-shaped jig or a leadhead bucktail jig. I place an Owner stinger hook onto the hook of the jig and as bait, use an 8- to 10-inch strip of squid, or strip of salmon belly, dogfish or sea robin.

To avoid snags while drifting along over the rough bottom, keep your line as nearly vertical as possible. Twitching the rod tip causes the rig to raise a few inches off the bottom and flutter back down, with both the jig and live bait moving along enticingly.

WEAKFISH
During spring, weakfish migrate into the waters of Chesapeake Bay and its many tributaries and practically every major bay along the middle Atlantic coast, such as Delaware and Raritan. The same holds true of the rivers, such as Indian River in Delaware and the Manasquan, Shark and Shrewsbury rivers in Jersey.

All of these waterways will have populations of weakfish in residence this season. Just when they’re going to arrive -- and how long they will stay -- are another question.

Weakfish will respond to a wide variety of small soft-plastic swim shad, rattle plugs, and leadhead jigs.

They’ll readily take soft crab bait drifted along the bottom, or a strip of squid.

Delaware Bay, once the “Weakfish Capital of the World,” continues to experience less-than-stellar weakfish angling. Interestingly, bays to the north of Delaware, particularly Raritan Bay, have been experiencing better than usual weakfish action.

No one seems to know why Delaware Bay’s fishery is on a down cycle, but maybe this will be the year for a weakfish revival!

STRIPED BASS
Last season was another banner year for catching striped bass, with a fine run of big fish in the Chesapeake Bay during the spring, and many returning again in the fall.

In the northern sector of their range, the forecast for spring 2008 will in large part be determined by the type of winter we experience.

If subfreezing temperatures prevail, locking many bays and rivers including the Hudson River in ice, the striper movement will be curtailed. The striper population in the Delaware and Hudson rivers doesn’t begin to vacate those waters until after the spawn takes place, usually in April through May.

The Hudson striper population provides the first major influx of bass into Raritan and Sandy Hook bays. The bass will arrive just as the huge schools of menhaden appear in the same waters from their wintertime haunts, intent on spawning.

These adult bunker provide forage for the stripers. Many of these bass will stay in the Jersey bays to feed heavily on the menhaden.

Some stripers stay in these waters and the nearby surf throughout the summer. Others move north along Long Island, and then northward to summer in New England waters.