During this period, and well into the 1950s, weakfish were plentiful in the bay, but their average length was only 12 or 13 inches. There were some larger specimens around, centered mostly around the jetties on both sides of the bay. The South Jetty of the Cape May Canal at Higbee's Beach was one spot where weakfish up to 6 pounds were occasionally taken by those anglers using live perch or floating bloodworms.

Otherwise, throughout the bay, the smaller fish were much more prevalent. Keep in mind that at this time, very fewer private boats had outboard motors of over 10 horsepower. Few fishermen ventured more than a couple of miles off the beach. To get good fishing, it wasn't necessary to head more than a mile offshore.

Folks fishing at that time did well catching weakfish on live grass shrimp. I well remember fishing just off the Villas in a small 14-foot boat, using grass shrimp that sold for the amazing sum of $1 a quart in Cape May. In those days, it wasn't hard to catch a few dozen weakfish, though not many were more than 12 inches in length.

This situation went on for many years, and no one even thought that weakfish could grow any larger. Maybe those monsters that showed up later were always available out around the lighthouses and in the lower bay, but few boats plied that area to find out. Small weakfish were common on both sides of the bay -- a situation that continued until the late 1970s, when "all of a sudden" the big, tiderunnner weakfish showed up. How these fish ranging up to 15 pounds had escaped fishermen's nets and lines for so long is a mystery. After all, fish of that size were probably 10 to 15 years old.

These weakfish ushered in the golden years of the weakfishing in Delaware Bay, and a fishing frenzy similar to the California Gold Rush took place. At that time, the average private fishing boats had increased to almost the size they are today. When these large weakfish were discovered around Brandywine Light, the Anchorage and Brown Shoal, everyone who could make this run did so. All the party and charter boat fleets from both sides of the bay congregated here, both day and night. Some nights, it seemed that a city was lighting up the middle of Delaware Bay.

In addition to recreational fisherman, netters from all over the bay converged on these areas and created real problems, as there were many conflicts. Netters would set their seines right in the midst of the drifting party boats and other recreational fishermen. It got to the point where in order to avoid some potentionally nasty conflicts, the New Jersey Marina Fisheries Bureau had to establish a triangle in that part of the bay, which limited access for both parties.

The fishing was truly out of this world! Anyone able to get a bucktail/plastic worm combo down to the bottom would likely fill the boat with these large weakfish. Actually, there were so many fish there that when you brought one to the surface, there would often be several others following it, sometimes in numbers that allowed them to be scooped up with a regular fish net.