I stopped by the Delaware on my way to work this week. I was surprised to see how the river "looked" during the last week of February. With all the cold and the snow and some good rain mixed in I thought the river would be up, even on a lower tide.
While volume is good for striped bass spawning runs, and it'll come with the spring rains and the melt in the mountains, water temperatures play a big role as well. Luckily we've had some balmy weather this week which has brought up the water temperatures a bit.
The Raritan Bay is hitting 44 during the warm parts of the day which is good for those anglers soaking bait on the mud flats. If timed right, tide, sun, and time of day things can get good out there especially towards the perimeter along Staten Island and New Jersey's bayshore towns.
The Delaware is now up into the 40's and it will be interesting to see what plays in out there. With the river at 5,740 cfs that could make for skin water conditions until a big rain comes and blows things out at 70,000 cfs, which happens every spring. People have their go-to cfs, and that depends on foot or on the boat, but 10,000- 20,000 works for me.
Have fun out there tomorrow is you go, and get them back into the water quick as possible.