Article by Larry Jock
Understandably, there isn’t much to report as this is being written on Monday morning. Tropical Storm Hermine continues to wreak havoc on offshore waters and it really doesn’t look fishable until very late in the week.
Prior to the weekend blow, offshore anglers were finding yellowfins cooperating down by the Bigeye Tuna hole in the Washington Canyon. Greenstickers were having the best luck, but those trolling and chunking were also coming home with some good catches. It was a real mix of fish with some upwards of 70+ lbs. in the mix with some rats. Anglers really had trouble with the sharks in the Washington Canyon last week with many reports coming in of good numbers of yellowfins getting bitten off during the fight. This was a big problem early in the season, but hadn’t been bad until last week.
Last Tuesday, Wyatt Greene caught a 76.7 lb. yellowfin while trolling in the Baltimore Canyon on the “Finominal”. This puts Wyatt at the top of the 2016 Leaderboard at the Indian River Marina.
Last week, we also saw some good white marlin action in the Baltimore Canyon. Boats out of Ocean City really smoked them on Thursday with a few recording double-digit releases. The “Knot Again” out of Indian River recorded 6 releases that day.
Dolphin continued to be caught in good numbers from deep in the canyons to some inshore structure. We even saw a good bite around the sea bass pots near the Radford Wreck.
Wahoo were caught by boats trolling artificials at the Chicken Bone and at the Fingers. On Thursday, a group boated a pair of speedsters at the Chicken Bone that weighed 33.7 and 37.1 lbs. Also last week, a 53 pounder was caught on a chugger by anglers trolling at the Fingers.
The headboats out of Indian River struggled with catching flounder for the majority of the week, but they did see good croaker fishing during the middle of last week for anglers fishing with clams. Most hardheads were in the 11 to 12-inch range.
Nice size black sea bass were caught on ocean structure with an especially good bite at the Radford Wreck and around “A” Buoy.
In the surf, small bluefish showed up before things got rough. The best results came while fishing with mullet. Surfcasters also saw a few kingfish during the day and sharks and rays at night.
In the Indian River Inlet, flounder are very few and far between, but anglers saw croakers willing to take offerings of Fishbites, squid, clams and bloodworms. Small bluefish were also caught by anglers tossing any type of metal lure and short stripers, in the 14 to 20-inch range, caught at night on plugs for anglers fishing off the rocks.
In the back bays, fishing remains on the quiet side with only reports of croakers being caught at Massey’s Ditch.
It should be interesting to see what happens after the seas calm down. Keep an eye on white marlin fishing. It’s about the time when that bite really starts heating up.
Until next week, tight lines!
