Article by Capt. Mark Sampson
When I was a kid and just learning about offshore fishing, the 30-fathom line was the place where most anglers would slow their boats, drop their riggers, and start trolling for billfish, tuna and dolphin. Boats were slower then, and for most, it would take close to three hours to complete the 40-mile run and finally get their lines in the water. It was only about a decade before that when most bill fishermen started their day on the already famous “Jackspot”, which lies 20-miles southeast of Ocean City. Prior to that, the Southeast Lumps inside of the Jackspot and even the Bass Grounds were places that early fishermen lowered their bamboo riggers and started fishing.
Back then, I spent all the time I could listening to and learning from any captain or mate willing to share information about how to rig baits, make leaders, set out a trolling spread, fix tackle, and all the other neat stuff that goes along with offshore fishing including opinions about where to actually go to catch fish. While preferences of fishing locations were as diverse as the characters who shared their secrets, the one statement that was almost universally agreed upon was, “I think that we (fishermen) are overrunning a lot of fish on our way out.” In the same breath, these fishermen would usually either describe how they used to catch fish 20-miles closer in and there’s no reason why those fish shouldn’t still be there today, or they would explain how a couple hours into their three hour voyage they’d encounter “pretty water” loaded with bait, slicks and other signs that their quarry should be there, but they would just run through it and keep on going the extra hour to their planned destination.
It’s funny how some things never change. Today the boats are so much faster, but three hours is still a common running time for so much of the fleet. Seems that faster doesn’t necessarily equate to getting there sooner as much as it means being able to go farther! And by-golly, just to show that there really is such a thing as an “honest” fisherman, I’m still hearing folks admit that they think they’re overrunning a lot of fish, but that they just don’t have the guts to stop short and give it a try, even though these days “stopping-short” can mean fishing a “measly” 60-miles out.
As the proud owner of one of the slowest charter boats in town, I’ve spent the last 24 years perfecting the art of stopping short to catch fish and I’m happy to report that yes, indeed, there are a lot of fish out there. I rarely fish for tuna anymore, but I’ll let you in on a secret from when I did. If the fleet was catching them on the Hotdog, I was probably doing so ten miles closer in on the Hambone. If everyone else was on the Hambone, I was probably inshore of that along the 20-fathom line, and if the 20-fathom line is where most were fishing, I was most likely pulling on tuna inshore on the Twin Wrecks. Granted, as the day progressed, we’d sometimes end up trolling our way farther offshore and join the rest of the fleet, but not before taking a shot at the inshore side of the fish first. I always figured there was no reason to burn up fuel and fishing time if we didn’t have to, and we usually managed to land our share of fish just the same.
The art of stopping short came to mind the other day as I was shark fishing five miles out. In the middle
of the afternoon, we noticed a panicked school of menhaden showering at the surface as something big attacked them from below. Periodically, the predators erupted into the air from beneath the frothing water in a display that could be seen from a half mile away. At first we couldn’t identify the attackers, but as the mayhem worked within 100-yards of our boat we could clearly see the predators were 300-pound-plus bluefin tuna! It was hard enough to believe that we were watching tuna of that caliber putting on such a display, and even tougher to comprehend that it was going on within eyesight of Ocean City!
Since then, I’ve spoken to a number of other fishermen who have also seen big bluefins busting on bait within eight miles of the coast. With all the menhaden that have been out there for more than a month, it doesn’t surprise me a bit that big tuna are feasting on the bounty. As a matter of fact, I wouldn’t be surprised to find that other fish that just shouldn’t be there – are!
So as we returned to the dock that day, I noticed that on the rigger of a friend’s boat flew five tuna flags. “Looks like you had a great day.” I told him from the dock. “How far did you have to go to get those fish?” When he told me that they had run about 40-miles to fish around the Hotdog I couldn’t help but mention to him, “I think you may have overrun the fish!”
Good luck to everyone in this week’s White Marlin Open, and remember that just because you “can” run way-way out doesn’t mean you “should”. Don’t be afraid to stop short; you might just discover that there’s a lot of good fish out there just a little shy of where everyone else is fishing!
Captain Mark Sampson is an outdoor writer and captain of the charter boat “Fish Finder”, docked at the Ocean City Fishing Center.
