Inlets are a unique challenge. Some may think me presumptuous for saying so, but I doubt if even one of 100 anglers has mastered the techniques of fishing inlets in a manner that consistently catches fish.

I began fishing inlets more than six decades ago, and the techniques that produced then continue to produce today. Back then, a heavy lure -- most often, a 1- to 3-ounce bucktail jig and piece of pork rind -- that got to the bottom and stayed there on an ebbing tide was the lure that produced. And today, so do its modern fancy-painted counterparts.

It’s simple: Look at a tide chart, plan your excursion on an ebbing tide, and be prepared to spend five or six hours of casting up into the current. Let your bucktail jig bounce the bottom and be swept seaward, finally sweeping off the bottom and getting retrieved.

Then move a few steps, repeat the same procedure and extend your casts, so that the bucktail jig bounces through every square yard of bottom. Somewhere down there will be a hungry striper, blue or weakfish, stemming the tide and waiting for crabs, grass shrimp, sand fleas, mullet, spearing, shad, herring, bunker and a host of other forage.

It’s really that easy. But you’ve got to forget the Mickey Mouse-sized lures, the fancy small plugs, metal squids and soft baits that can’t reach the bottom of an inlet 20 feet deep. In these southern inlets, you’ll catch fish you never thought were there. But it takes perseverance during the day, and especially on a brisk autumn night.

With a moon bright enough to read a newspaper, a swiftly ebbing tide, noisy spearing packed tense against the rocks, and hungry stripers tight to the bottom, waiting for dinner to be swept their way, is a combination guaranteed to provide exciting action, now that Labor Day has passed.

DELAWARE BAY AND SOUTHERN INLETS
When thousands of stripers -- some of which spent the summer fully 100 miles from the sea -- begin to leave the Delaware River along with large schools of forage heading seaward, suddenly lots of stripers join the already numerous bluefish in the Delaware Bay. An ebbing tide is nature’s chum line emptying from the upper reaches of the river.

What’s unique about Delaware Bay is that many stripers will spend the winter in its waters. So from Labor Day until it just gets too cold to fish, bay stripers are present and feeding.

Drifting live eels, spot or chunk bait through the rips and eddies that form above the varied bottom configuration of the bay is a fun way to score with stripers and blues.

Just a glance at a navigation chart will show the many varied shoals that flank either side of Bay Shore and Cape May Channels. There’s North Shoal, Middle Shoal and Round Shoal, where the depths are only a minimal 5 to 15 feet deep -- prime locations where baitfish and game fish congregate.

I’ve enjoyed fishing the rips with a casting rod, using a leadhead bucktail jig and pork rind, or a soft-plastic 5- to 8-inch-long swim shad. Just permit your lure to settle to the bottom, and then use a whip retrieve. That often results in exciting strikes from stripers waiting for a meal to be swept their way.

Ah, fall is in the air -- and stripers and bluefish are in the sea, just waiting for you to fool them with a well-placed lure or bait. This may just be the best time of year to be a saltwater fisherman!