Article by Sue Foster
“What can we catch besides flounder?”
It seems that all summer, anglers go fishing for flounder every day. Sometimes they get tired of fishing for only flounder and want to try something else.
If you have a boat, of course you have more places to go, and more territory to cover.
Sometimes you have a group of kids you are trying to entertain. That’s when I would always have a bag of Fish Bites Alternative Bloodworms in my boat and some top and bottom rigs made with size #6 hooks. With this set-up you can always drop down anywhere and see what else is biting! If you drift around the Rt. 90 Bridge with these “fake” worms or with real worms, and tip this worm bait with a little strip of squid or any kind of fresh fish bait, you can catch Norfolk spot, blowfish, small sea bass, sea robins, snapper blues, possibly a porgy, or small sea trout. Later, (usually towards the end of July) or maybe any day now, we’ll have a croaker run and those critters will eat up the worm and cut-bait combo. If you start catching spot, it doesn’t really matter if you use cut bait with the worm but other fish like a little piece of meat with the Fish Bites.
You can do this kind of fishing near the bulkhead at 33rd Street on the West side of the bay where there is a good sized hole with different varieties of fish swimming in it. Just off the 9th Street Pier offers a variety of fish as the bottom is bumpy there. The inlet itself is good for these baits, plus sometimes you get into kingfish if you fish the inlet or the south side of the South Jetty. Anchor or drift in the bay behind Assateague near buoy #10 and there’s all kind of little interesting fish to catch on small hooks and worms.
If you fish down by the Verrazano Bridge near Assateague you can also catch spot, croaker, blowfish and other small fish, BUT sometimes anglers catch some larger fish down there too. Try peeler crabs for trout and black drum. Cast small lures for stripers. Try some fresh or salted clam or dip yourself some grass shrimp. A surprising number of black drum are known to be caught back there. Stripers and drum hang around the Rt. 90 Bridge and also around the Bridge in the Fenwick Ditch as well.
Ocean City’s South Jetty is home for quite a variety of fish. Anglers casting sand fleas or other pieces of crab or clam can catch tautog here all summer. When it’s hard to get a “keeper” from the shore, anglers working the south side of the South Jetty, casting crabs into deep holes can usually get their two keepers. There’s also triggerfish that can be caught on the same bait and occasionally some good eating sheepshead. These same fish also hang around the rocks near Gudelsky Park, across the bay from MR Ducks. Triggers and tautog need to be caught on smaller hooks than you use for flounder. An Octopus style hook in size #1/0 to #2/0 is good “summertime” size.
“Early Bird gets the worm” is the key in the summer. Anglers working the tip of the South Jetty, the entrance to the Assateague Bay, and deep holes in the Inlet can catch nice stripers if they get out there at day break and work the waters till the boat traffic gets up and running. Have the kids catch some live spot in the canals with little tiny hooks and bloodworms or fake bloodworm. Keep the spot in an aerator bucket or live well in the boat and “live bait” them to the stripers. Besides spot, you can cast net little bunkers, use live eels, or throw Swimming Shad lures or other popular striper lures. Besides day break, you can also try late afternoon into evening.
Bluefish come into the inlets during the incoming tides. Move your flounder rigs faster if you see the birds diving and fish breaking. You’ll know you are in a school of bluefish if your live minnows come back bit in two. You can throw out bucktails with squid, plastic worms or Gulp! swimming grubs. Almost anything that you throw towards them and keep moving will attract a bluefish. If they aren’t big, don’t cast anything too large!
Blues like meat! When I see that blues are biting, I keep using a minnow or shiner bait, but add a strip of any kind of fresh or frozen bait. A strip of finger mullet is one of my favorite baits. I like to use the Aqua-Clear flounder rigs with the little silver fish. The blues and flounder really like them!
“I don’t have a boat!”
If you are fishing from the shore, fish the size #6 or #8 hooks with worms for spot and any other little fish that may be swimming around. If you are on the more northern piers such as the pier at 125th Street, the pier behind Convention Hall at 40th Street, or the pier at the Isle of Wight at the Route 90 Bridge, you definently want to take worms or Bloodworm Fish Bites. Night crawlers work good too. There’s spot, sand perch, snapper blues, small flounder, and lots of blue crabs!
If you are on any of the more southern piers, in the Inlet, or fishing off of the bulkhead that runs from 2nd through 4th Streets, use worms for spot and other small pan fish or try sand fleas or clam for triggerfish and tautog. Try cutting or filleting finger mullet for bluefish.
Night fishing under the lights at the Inlet and Oceanic Pier is really good using spec rigs or Gotcha Plugs for blues and stripers. Stripers also like Swimming Shad lures. The Ocean Pier can be fished just like the surf. Use worms for kingfish and spot. Cut bait for blues and yes, there are some nice sharks and rays out there. Use squid and cut bait, especially at night under the lights! I hear it’s very interesting.
Yes, there’s more than flounder out there, though no matter what else you fish for, you’ll probably still catch some of those plentiful “flatfish.”
Variety is the spice of life. Good fishing….
Sue Foster is an outdoor writer and co-owner of Oyster Bay Tackle in Ocean City, MD and Fenwick Tackle in Fenwick, DE.
