Article by Larry Jock
There wasn’t much change to the fishing scene last week with below average bites in the bay and offshore but good action on inshore reefs and wrecks.
The MidAtlantic Tournament dominated the news last week with the 89 boats fishing out of Ocean City taking the majority of the prize money. It’s easy to see the current state of the offshore marlin bite by comparing the number of marlin hooked in the tournament this year versus last year.
White Marlin:
2017 - 420
2016 - 798
Blue Marlin:
2017 - 34
2016 - 30
The big news coming out of the tournament was the 680 lb. blue marlin caught on Thursday by Larry Hesse on the “Goin’ In Deep” and the 184 lb. yellowfin caught on the same trip by Mike Cassidy. Both fish came from outside the Wilmington Canyon with the blue marlin hitting a Pakula lure and the yellowfin being hooked on a trolled ballyhoo. No doubt the blue marlin was an impressive fish, but the big allison yellowfin was the largest we have seen in Ocean City since a 184 pounder was caught on the “Sea Wolf” during the MidAtlantic back in 2006.
On the same day, James Kontos on the “Let It Ride” arrived at the tournament scale with a 677 lb. blue marlin that was hooked in the Washington Canyon with only 27 minutes left in the fishing day.
The vast majority of white marlin caught in the tournament came from the Washington Canyon. The winning 75 pounder was caught on the final day of the tournament by Kyle Mayer on the “Waste Knot” while trolling a naked ballyhoo in 50 fathoms in the Washington Canyon. The 2nd place white marlin was brought in by the first boat to arrive at the scale on opening day. The 72 pounder was caught by Jay Monteverdi on the “Taylor Jean” after he hooked it on a ballyhoo in 1,000 fathoms outside the Washington Canyon.
Local boat, “Billfisher” took top honors in the Total Points category with 12 white marlin releases and a pair of blue marlin releases during their 3 days of fishing between the Washington and Norfolk Canyons. Ocean City boat “Marlin Gale” also had a good tournament with releases of 11 white marlin and a blue marlin. Close behind was the “DA?Sea” with 10 white marlin releases.
With the monster yellowfin caught on the “Goin’ In Deep” sitting on top of the leaderboard in the Heaviest Tuna category, everyone else was playing for 2nd and 3rd. A boat fishing out of Cape May caught a 126 lb. bigeye tuna early in the week and held on to win 2nd place and a pair of Cape May boats each caught a 72 lb. yellowfin to tie for 3rd place.
Large dolphin continue to be scarce this season. The winning dolphin was a 23 pounder caught on the “Speculator” on the second day of the tournament in the Washington Canyon.
The heaviest wahoo was a 67 pounder caught on the “Contrail” with a 33 lb. speedster boated on the “Top Dog” being the heaviest caught out of Ocean City. Their wahoo was caught on the last day while trolling deep in the Norfolk Canyon.
Outside of the event, the bright spot of the week was definitely the flounder action on ocean reefs and wrecks. This bite has been getting better and better recently, both in the number of fish being caught and their average size. You can really see it throughout the pages of this weeks issue. Although the Old Grounds gets the majority of publicity for producing nice catches of flatties, we saw the Bass Grounds turning into a hot spot last week. Several quality fish weighing up to over 7 lbs. were caught by anglers dropping belly meat, Gulp, shiners or big minnows to the bottom. Those placing skirts or squids in front of their baits seem to be having the best luck.
Site 10, which had been a hot location in previous weeks, was kind of hit-or-miss last week. Some anglers went out and found good flounder action while others hooked nothing but small croakers and sea bass.
No matter where you fished for flounder, you had to deal with a large number of throwbacks. That has been the case all season for those drifting in the waters behind Ocean City and Assateague Island. Some larger fish have been caught recently in the deep holes of the East Channel, but the overall bite continues to be slow.
Anglers fishing around the South Jetty have found some black drum more than willing to eat their offerings of clams and sand fleas. Also around the South Jetty, Pat McFarland on the charter boat, “Lucky Break” boated a beautiful 13 lb. 2 oz. sheepshead last week while using sand fleas for bait.
With a slow marlin and tuna bite, more and more boats are opting to save their day with some tilefishing and good catches of both bluelines and goldens have come from those dropping squid in the Baltimore Canyon.
In addition to the wahoo caught during the tournament on the “Top Dog”, we did see a 55 pounder hooked last week at the Rockpile by Rick Johnson on the “Tunatamer”.
The first longfin tunas of the season were caught on Friday by Keith Fraser and Ken Garufi on the “FFMD” while trolling in 1,000 fathoms outside the Norfolk Canyon.
Just a reminder that cobia fishing in Federal waters will be reopened on September 5th. The minimum size is 36-inches and anglers are allowed to keep 1 per person or 6 per boat, whichever is more restrictive.
Upcoming Tournaments
It’s hard to believe the season is winding down and Labor Day is right around the corner. This weekend is the 59th Annual Ocean City Marlin Club Labor Day White Marlin Tournament on September 1st, 2nd & 3rd. Weigh-ins are at Sunset Marina each day from 5:30 to 7:30 PM.
The following weekend is the Big Fish Classic that was rescheduled to September 8th, 9th and 10th.
See you at the scales!
