Article by Capt. Lance Smith
There is a lot to do in Ocean City after the sun goes down. If you have children, there is the Boardwalk and all of the rides, Jolly Rogers, go-kart tracks, putt-putt, arcades, laser tag and so on. If you happen to be single, or you just want to hang out with friends and such, there about 50,000 different restaurants and bars to choose from. If however, you are a night owl and an addicted angler like myself, you may find yourself roaming the downtown area with a fishing rod in hand. Whether you have a boat or not is really of no consequence after the sun goes down. All you need to be successful is some knowledge, some tackle, maybe a few extra dollars and one of those little LED headlamp thingies.
With the exception of tautog, just about everything that you may catch in the bay during the day can be caught at night. Tautog go into a state of suspended animation and no matter how hard you try, they simply will not bite. Rockfish, bluefish, seatrout and yes, even flounder lurk in the shadows of the lights beneath the Route 50 Bridge, the bulkhead between 2nd and 4th Streets, the Oceanic Pier, the OC Fishing Pier and the North Jetty at the Inlet. All of these locations have one thing in common and that is lights. Lights attract baitfish and of course baitfish attract the predatory fish we are hunting. Each of these locations is different from the other and each requires slightly different tactics. The focus this week will be on one of the trickier spots to fish, the Route 50 Bridge.
Before you decide to park and tote all of your equipment up to the Bridge, you need to understand what lies beneath it. The deepest and swiftest water is on the east side of the Bridge near the draw, and water depth basically decreases as you move west toward the mainland. The area near the Drawbridge is where you will usually find the most anglers gathered after dark. These fisherman are likely targeting large stripers that lurk near the bottom where depths can reach 25-feet or more. Combine this depth with the amount of current that runs through this area on most tides and you can begin to imagine the difficulty of reaching the bottom.
Moving westward, the water depth decreases gradually on both sides to around 12 to 15-feet where there are sandbars on either side. Still moving to the west, the depth decreases to 4 to 8-feet until you reach the channel at the very end of the bridge where it once again drops off to 12-feet or so. Each of these depth ranges holds fish and each is fished slightly different. Fishing the deep water near the drawbridge probably offers the best opportunity for catching a legal sized striper. In order to fish here, you are going to need some beefy tackle. Spinning rods over 7-feet, rated for heavy lures and paired with a reel capable of holding 40-50 lb. braided line are ideal. Many fisherman use their surf rods when fishing here. Another good investment, regardless of where you fish on the Bridge, is a bridge net. A bridge net is basically a round wire frame (like a hula-hoop) with netting on the bottom and a long length of rope rigged to keep the frame parallel to the water surface. It can be heartbreaking to fight a fish to exhaustion only to lose it while trying to pull it up without a net.
Productive lures for this area of the bridge need to be heavy enough to put you in the strike zone near the bottom. Swim shads, leadheads rigged with either straight or twisted tails, bucktails with plastic trailers, and Gotcha Plugs are all good choices. Plastics and bucktails can be fished either alone or in tandem depending on their weight and the stage of the tide. While fish are available on both the north and south sides of the Bridge, I personally prefer to fish the north side. When the tide is running out, casting far upcurrent, allowing your lure to sink a bit and jigging it back towards you as it sweeps the bottom is one effective method. If the tide is coming in, you can skillfully toss your lure under the Bridge and allow the current to bring it back out on the side you are fishing. Either way, you need to keep good contact with your lures in order to feel the bottom and avoid the many snags caused by the rocks placed near the Bridge. Live eels are easy to keep alive in a bucket and when fished on the bottom with a fishfinder rig, can produce some large stripers.
Fishing in the area between the sandbar to the north and Skimmer Island also produces many fish. If the tide is running especially hard, it can be much easier to reach the bottom here and flounder become available. While flounder are much easier to catch at night from a boat using live bait such as spot, alewives and mullet, slowing down your retrieve and using GULP! Swimming Mullets can produce some flatties. Attempting this should be done during a slow or slack tide so it is easier to maintain contact with the bottom. Wherever you fish off of the Rt. 50 Bridge, keep in mind that the fish are not always directly beneath you. Many times they use the shadow where the light begins to dissipate away from the Bridge to ambush baitfish. I used to think that catching flounder at night was a fluke (no pun intended) until I began specifically targetting them from a boat.
The fish that roam the shallows from Skimmer Island to West Ocean City are often ignored by bridge anglers. On most nights, when the water is pretty clear, you can actually see smaller rockfish, bluefish, and seatrout swimming beneath the bridge. These fish can be awfully skittish and difficult to entice a bite from in the shallow water. Scaling down the size of your lures and allowing them to drift perfectly with the current can sometimes make them bite. These fish are typically feeding on smaller bait such as shiners and crabs. As you peer into the water on this end of the bridge, you will notice holes which are deeper than the surrounding flats. These holes often hold seatrout (weakfish) and are probably the best location to hook into a night time flounder.
Very soon, spot, bunker, and mullet will be available to buy or catch in the bay. While it can be a pain, and you may lose some baits in the process, you can certainly use larger live baits from the bridge. In fact, this is how I discovered that flounder will bite at night. The easiest baits to keep alive, whether you catch them yourself or buy them, are spot. You will need a pair of five gallon buckets, one to transport the bait to the bridge in, and another to hang over the side to keep them alive. Using a drill and a half-inch bit, drill holes through the side of a bucket beginning about 5-inches from the bottom and continuing upward and around until you are about halfway to 3/4 from the top. This will allow water to flow through the bucket and make it much easier to lift when you need a fresh bait. Use a long, sturdy rope to keep the bucket hanging in the current below you. Never tie the rope to the bucket handle or you will lose it. Instead, drill a hole in the side near the top and one in the lid to run the rope through.
Carrying a five gallon bucket full of water from your parking spot to your fishing destination is not for the faint of heart. A beach cart, or something similar, can really come in handy here. Also, and I am not condoning breaking the speed limit, you need to get your bait to the bridge and in the water quickly before they expire. If you happen to have a boat with a livewell, this whole process is much easier. I actually removed the bathroom from my pontoon boat and replaced it with a plastic 55 gallon drum and livewell pump. Using a container this large will allow you to keep the notoriously delicate peanut bunker alive. These can be killer baits for seatrout and flounder when fished with a light weight and bounced along the bottom in the deeper holes that dimple the shallows.
When fishing from a boat at night near the bridge, both drifting and anchoring can be productive. If fishing the deeper water near the drawbridge for large stripers is your goal, drifting is usually the best option. Depending on the tide, you can either pull up to the bridge and drift away from it, or start 50 to 60 yards up-current and drift towards it. Make sure to use enough weight to keep your bait close to the bottom and give circle hooks a try. Whether drifting or anchoring, please be courteous to the anglers fishing above you and pick a section of bridge that is free of people.
When searching for flounder and seatrout in the shallows from a boat, anchoring is the best option. Use your depthfinder and your eyes to setup next to one of the many holes under the lights and stay relatively close to the bridge. Live baits here can be dropped straight down and allowed to drift back to the bridge by lifting your rod and letting out some slack. You can also cast towards the bridge and very slowly retrieve your bait back to the boat. Seatrout, bluefish and rockfish will typically inhale a bait and take off swimming, requiring only a short drop for the fish to completely swallow your offering. When using spot, mullet or bunker for flounder, give them ample time before you set the hook. A flounder bite at night from an anchored boat will often feel like a sudden attack and then nothing. Anytime you feel this, count to at least 20 or more (depending on the size of your bait) before attempting to set the hook. There is nothing worse than jerking your bait out of a flounder's mouth just to reel in a mutilated and scaleless bait. Most flounder you catch at night are large, and some will be very large.
Avoiding the daytime crowds and experimenting with various fishing techniques around the Route 50 Bridge is a great way to catch some monster fish throughout the summer and fall. If you happen to see a guy and a giant-headed chocolate lab on a pontoon boat under the bridge this summer, odds are it's me. Even if you don't like my writing, please don't throw sinkers at me because you may hit the dog! Be safe, good luck, and keep in mind that there are some very skilled captains available here in the Coastal Fisherman that can take you out for some midnight madness.
Lance Smith is an outdoor writer and Captain of his family’s boat, the “Longfin”.
