About Lewes
Lewes sits on Delaware Bay just inside Cape Henlopen, and Roosevelt Inlet, 3 miles west of the cape, is the entrance to the Lewes and Rehoboth Canal. The port fishes year-round, with nearshore bottom fish carrying the cold months and offshore pelagics taking over when the water warms. Boats here target bluefin tuna, yellowfin tuna, mahi-mahi and white marlin offshore, black sea bass, summer flounder and tautog on structure, and striped bass at the bay mouth. Detail on each species is in the Atlantic Northeast fishing guide. Size, bag and season rules are on the Delaware state regulations page. Check them before you fish, since DNREC can change them in season.
Access and navigation
The city marina is the one facility to plan around on the Lewes side:
- Canalfront Park and Marina – city marina on the Lewes and Rehoboth Canal with 19 floating slips from 24 to 40 ft, pump-out and a fishing pier.
NOAA U.S. Coast Pilot 3 notes that the inlets on this coast change often and call for local knowledge. Shoals and buoy positions in Roosevelt Inlet can shift faster than charts are updated, so run the buoys as you find them rather than as you remember them or as they are drawn.
The inlet passage itself tends to be short, and the water that matters is often outside it, on Delaware Bay toward the mouth. When wind blows against an ebbing tide there, it can stand the waves up into a short, steep chop, so the same forecast can look different on the ebb than on the flood. The Overfalls, a charted shoal near the bay mouth, is a place where water can stack up when tide and wind oppose. Watch tide stage, wind direction relative to the current, wave height and period.
From Roosevelt Inlet you can also run east along Delaware Bay and round Cape Henlopen to the ocean instead of heading straight for the bay mouth shoals. Which line works better depends on wind direction and tide stage.
Breakpoint chart layers are not for navigation. Use official NOAA charts and the buoys on the water.
For the offshore leg, read the NWS offshore marine forecast for Hudson Canyon to Baltimore Canyon (ANZ820), along with the coastal and bay forecasts from the NWS, and compare them with what you see at the inlet. If the water looks bigger than you want when you arrive, switch approaches or change the plan.
Fishing conditions
Lewes boats fish the bay mouth, the state reef sites and the offshore canyons. OBS SST and Chlorophyll show where the temperature and color edges sit before you commit fuel to a canyon run. Cloud can block a satellite SST pass, so treat a gap in the layer as missing data rather than an empty ocean.
The grounds, nearest to farthest:
- Reef Site 9 and Reef Site 10 – DNREC artificial reef sites
- Reef Site 11 (Redbird Reef) – artificial reef
- Del-Jersey-Land Inshore Site – reef site
- Old Grounds – ocean structure
- Massey’s Canyon – nearest canyon
- Washington Canyon and Baltimore Canyon – deeper canyon grounds
The DNREC Delaware Reef Guide has site charts and coordinates for the reef sites. The same reef sites and canyons are also fished from Indian River Inlet.
Winter
- Tautog hold on the reef sites and other structure.
- Striped bass work the bay mouth and the coast inside state waters.
- Black sea bass sit on structure, but the season is closed, so they are a spring and later target.
- Offshore tuna are possible when a weather window opens.
Spring
- Black drum show up on the Delaware Bay shell beds in May.
- Striped bass move along the bay in April and May.
- Summer flounder start appearing in the Lewes and Rehoboth Canal and Roosevelt Inlet.
- Black sea bass season opens May 1 under DNREC rules.
- Tautog have a spring closure. Check the regulations page for the dates.
Summer
- Summer flounder fish well on Reef Site 10 and the Old Grounds.
- Yellowfin and bluefin tuna work the canyons and the temperature edges.
- Mahi-mahi hold around offshore structure and edges.
- White marlin and blue marlin are canyon targets.
- Wahoo can turn up in the canyons.
Autumn
- The striped bass migration moves down the coast past Cape Henlopen from October into December.
- Yellowfin tuna and mahi-mahi can hold offshore late.
- White marlin are an autumn canyon target.
- Black sea bass and tautog are on the reef sites and structure.
