When approached about writing this article, I knew it would be a problem. After all, one must consider that the past couple of years have been miserable concerning weakfish action on Delaware Bay. So there goes any history upon which we could base any clear thoughts or facts. How can anyone expect to give a favorable expectation when the past couple of years were a disaster for weakfish anglers? There's only one solution to the problem, and that's to be optimistic and hope for the best!

As anyone who fishes Delaware Bay from either the Delaware or New Jersey side knows, weakfishing has been terrible these past couple of years, despite a few days last fall when a smattering of trout appeared -- briefly. A few limits of sea trout were reported, but these were few and far between. In addition, many of these fish were not too far over the miniscule 13-inch limit.

During last season, there were a lot of undersized weakfish. In fact, this has been the case for the past couple of years. During the past two summers, Capt. Joe Ronketty, of the Bonanza II out of Fortescue, has had days when he had over 200 weakies come aboard, but with only two legal fish in the entire catch! The hopes were that these smaller fish would return as bigger specimens the following year, but it never did happen. It was as if these fish were just swallowed up by the ocean.

I inquired about this situation to fisheries biologists in both states. Both Bruce Freeman (recently retired) of the New Jersey Marine Fisheries Bureau and Craig Shirey of the Delaware Fisheries Bureau told me that in all seriousness, they couldn't explain where this mass of weakfish met their Maker.

They speculate that the declining numbers of weakfish are probably due to natural predation by fish such as stripers or bluefish. They also state that the reason for the disappearance of these weakfish is the fault of neither commercial fishermen nor recreational anglers. If this is so, then why are recreational anglers possibly on target to get more restrictions on weakfish, when they weren't partly the cause of the declining numbers in the first place?

However, this explanation isn't perceived to be true by any fishermen I have contacted! Most anglers feel that the real reason for the terrible fishing in Delaware Bay is that these weakfish are being scooped up, first as they leave the mouth of Delaware Bay in the fall, and then further depleted by the nets of commercial fishermen off the coasts of Southern states, particularly North Carolina and Georgia.

Let's review the history of weakfish in Delaware Bay, to provide a general description that covers the bay as a whole. Back in the 1940s, bay fishermen were almost completely devoted to catching croakers. Then in the 1950s, croaker numbers had tailed off and fluke became the dominant species. During this time, there were some years when the porgy fishing was excellent and also years when blowfish came in so thick that using bait was a problem due to their interference.