Article by Larry Jock
Well, after weeks of excellent fishing, this past week definitely won’t go down as one of the best of the season. An abundance of warm water along with an uncooperative Mother Nature, made things challenging.
Poor Girl’s Open
Very rarely do you see a single boat dominate a local tournament, but we certainly saw it in the Poor Girl’s Open when the “Fin-ness” took 1st place in the Billfish Release Division, 1st, 2nd and 3rd in the Tuna Division and 1st and 3rd in the Dolphin Division. This was some incredible fishing, especially when the crew had to deal with 4-8 foot seas.
On the first day of the tournament, the “Fin-ness” blew away the competition with 10 white marlin releases deep outside the Spencer Canyon in 1,000 fathoms.
On the second day of the tournament, worsening sea conditions prevented Capt. Howard Lynch from getting to his “honey hole”, and kept him closer to home in the Poor Man’s Canyon. Here, the lady anglers picked up three yellowfin tuna weighing 76.5, 68.2 and 66.0 lbs. They also caught a few dolphin, with the largest weighing 43.5 lbs. All of the fish were fooled with Squidnation teasers and hooked on dink baits.
Overall, you had to admire the lady anglers in this year’s tournament. Those that ventured out braved some less than ideal conditions. Others wanted to head offshore, but their captain decided it was not a good idea.
The big winner of the tournament is the American Cancer Society, with a $50,000 donation from the tournament.
Flounder
Now, don’t get excited about the flounder you see in the picture above, thinking it was caught this past week, because it wasn’t. The 10 pounder was actually caught in mid-July and we just found the picture. It is the largest of the year so far out of Ocean City.
Unfortunately, this past week was a tough week for flounder fishing, with bad weather creating sub-par water conditions. However, we did see a couple larger fish hit the scales. On Sunday, Zach Baker landed a 26-incher while fishing with live spot between the East and West Channels. This location has been a good spot over the last couple of weeks and tends to be less crowded than the East Channel. Anglers are still having to weed through a good number of throwbacks to get their keeper. It is still running around 10 to 1.
The good news is that ocean reefs and wrecks are starting to produce some nice catches. The “Morning Star” has been bringing back more and more flounder each day with some making it over 4.5 lbs. In the middle of the week, Sean and Liam Campiglia teamed up to catch a 5 lb. 1 oz. flattie on an ocean wreck while fishing on the “Ocean Princess”.
We are seeing some interesting developments regarding flounder bait this year. Sure, the old reliable minnows, squid, shiners and spot will work, but Gulp! baits are really taking the bay fishing world by storm. The Swimming Mullet continues to produce, but anglers fishing with the bigger Gulp! baits are definitely catching larger fish. In particular, we have seen some nice, larger flounder caught on the 6-inch Gulp! Grub. Honestly, it looks like nothing more than a Swimming Mullet on steroids, but it definitely has the attention of bigger flatties. Check with your local tackle shop for availability.
Croaker
We still haven’t seen any good croaker catches this summer and anglers are anxiously awaiting their arrival.
Cobia
A few cobia are still being caught around the Great Gull area by anglers fishing with live spot. The “Fish Finder”, with Capt. Mark Sampson at the helm, seems to have the best bead on the “man in the brown suit”, landing another one last week. This one tipped the scales at 25 lbs.
Kim Bounds on the “Moppet” also landed a 40 pounder in the same area while fishing with her husband, E.R. Bounds.
Unfortunately, Capt. Mark didn’t report any more tarpon around the boat and I haven’t heard of any anglers that were able to hook one while they were here.
Sea Bass
It has really been an interesting year for sea bass fishing. Some days it is excellent, but most days it is sporadic. Ocean reefs and wrecks just aren’t producing as expected and nobody knows why. Is the water too warm? Are the fish just spread out over more reefs? If anyone has any theories, I’m all ears.
Dolphin
Like last summer, dolphin seem to be the star of the show this time of year with several boats loading up on bailers. In particular, the headboat “Angler” came back from a couple of trips last week with good catches of dolphin up to 21 lbs. Mate Dean Lo reported that most of the fish were caught on whole squid.
The largest dolphin we saw this week was the 43.5 pounder caught on the “Fin-ness” in the Poor Girls’ Tournament. This fish was hooked deep outside the Poor Man’s Canyon.
The closest catch to the shoreline that we saw was a 48-incher caught early in the week at the Twin Wrecks.
Wahoo
We only saw a couple of speedsters caught last week, both by boats out of the Indian River Marina. A 62 pounder was caught on the “Fish Whistle” in the Baltimore Canyon and a 52.8 lb. wahoo was hooked around the Triple Wrecks, which is just east of the Teacup.
Billfish
Early in the week, the best billfish action was in the Washington Canyon/Rockpile area where several boats recorded multiple releases.
On Tuesday, the “Partner-Ship” recorded a grand slam when they released a sailfish, a blue marlin and a white marlin around the Rockpile.
On Wednesday, the bite moved to the Baltimore Canyon where the “Reel Joy” released 7 white marlin, the “Billfisher” released 6 whites and the “D.A. Sea” released 5 white marlin. Several other boats released a couple of whites and the “Reel Naughty” even picked up a sailfish in 55 fathoms on the 966 line.
As mentioned earlier, the best catch of the week was on the “Fin-ness” when they released 10 whites on Thursday. Capt. Howard has been pretty closed mouth on the location of the catch, understandably so with the Mid-Atlantic $500,000 this week, but most are speculating that he found them deep in the Spencer Canyon. Wherever it was, it was one heckuva a catch!
Tuna
The yellowfin bite has slowed dramatically over the last week due to poor weather conditions and an abundance of warm water. Early in the week the bite centered around the Washington Canyon/Rockpile area but moved north to the Poor Man’s and Baltimore Canyons by mid-week.
A good bite did pop up in 100 fathoms in the Poor Man’s over the weekend where the “Canyon Blues” even boated a couple of longfins. The large yellowfins caught on the “Fin-ness” during the Poor Girl’s Tournament were caught deep outside the Baltimore Canyon.
The highlight of the week was Mike Vaughan landing a 93 lb. yellowfin in 70 fathoms near the Rockpile on Tuesday. Mike was fishing with Capt. John Thibodeau and Mike Wesson.
In the Surf
Sue Foster at Oyster Bay Tackle reports, “In the surf, we're having summertime action with kingfish, spot, croaker, some bluefish (mostly at night), sharks, rays and skates. There were a couple really good runs of croaker on Assatague and the Delaware State Park.
Upcoming Tournaments
By the time this issue comes out we will be halfway through the 19th Annual Mid-Atlantic $500,000. Weigh-ins are at Sunset Marina from 5 PM to 9 PM.
The next tournament on the schedule is the Marlin Club Labor Day Tournament on September 4th, 5th and 6th. Weigh-ins are at Sunset Marina.
See you at the scales.
