Article by Larry Jock
It was a week dotted with bad weather, preventing anglers from hitting the water everyday. However, those days when boats could make it out, saw nice catches in the bay and offshore.
Bahia Marina Flounder Pounder
The 7th Annual Bahia Marina Flounder Pounder was held on Sunday with 109 anglers competing for over $6,700 in prize money. Rich Daiker on the “Baron Sea” won 1st place with a 5 lb. 12 oz. flounder, just beating out his fishing partner, Kenny Shoen, who landed a 5 lb. 11 oz. flattie to win second place. The fish were caught on live mullet at the South Jetty. Third place was won by Zac Snyder with a 4 pounder caught on a live mullet in the Middle Channel, between the East and West Channels, north of the Rt. 50 Bridge. Several other fish over 3 lbs. were weighed and a couple of boats had nice stingers of 4 to 6 fish.
As always, Bahia Marina did a great job hosting the tournament with a lot of smiling faces around the scales.
Flounder
Dirty water plagued fishermen all week due to heavy rains and wind, and with kids back at school, there were definitely less boats on the water, resulting in a lot fewer fish being caught. Some good size flounder were hooked, mainly around the South Jetty. In addition to the tournament winning fish mentioned earlier, Joe Costello landed a nice 5 pounder at the South Jetty on Friday.
Earlier in the week, the charter boat, “Get Sum” returned with 6 in the box after fishing in the East Channel and the Fishbowl.
We also saw good catches coming in on the head boats “Morning Star” and “Angler” from trips to ocean structure. On Saturday, an angler on the “Morning Star” boated an 6 lb. 11 oz. flattie.
Live bait seems to be the key to catching keeper flounder right now. Live spot and mullet are really producing some nice catches.
Sheepshead
You saw on the cover the great catch on Sunday aboard the charter boat, “Lucky Break”, where anglers returned with 7 sheepshead weighing up to 12 lbs. On Friday, the “Lucky Break” had another nice catch of 4 sheepshead, hooked on sand fleas and green crabs at the South Jetty.
Those that have been catching sheepshead are doing so by anchoring on the inside of the South Jetty during the incoming tide and using crabs for bait.
Croaker
The croaker bite continued last week with good bites at the mouth of the Commercial Harbor and further north behind Bahia Marina. Fishbite bloodworm strips and Gulp! artificial baits did the trick.
Striped Bass
Linesiders have been found around the South Jetty and UNDER the Rt. 50 Bridge. You need live bait, preferably spot or even better, croakers. Remember, croakers have to be at least 9-inches to keep and use for bait.
Sea Bass
The sea bass bite has been nothing to write home about recently, but for a couple of days last week it turned on pretty good. Kind of tough to get a bead on though, with most anglers fishing for flounder on ocean structure.
Tilefish
On Friday, anglers on the “Reelentless” (not the charter boat) returned from deep dropping outside the Washington Canyon with a nice catch of golden tilefish and a couple of blueline tilefish. The heaviest blueline tilefish weighed 16 lbs. which is big for a blueline, just 1 lb. 7 oz. less than the current MD state record.
Marlin
Unfortunately, rough weather prevented offshore anglers from hitting the seas as much as they would have liked to, but when they did, they saw some days with good white and blue marlin release numbers.
The bite last week took place at the southern end of the Poor Man’s Canyon down into the Washington Canyon. Along with a good number of white marlin being hooked, anglers also saw a productive week for blue marlin. “Miss Annie”, “Rhonda’s Osprey”, “Reel Chaos”, “Game Over” and the “Marli” all recorded blue marlin releases.
Friday looked like the best day of the week when boats found good numbers of white marlin in 50 to 100 fathoms around the Rockpile. The “Game Over” had an interesting day, releasing 3 white marlin, a blue marlin and a great white shark.
Tuna
It was another tough week for tuna fishermen with only a couple being caught on Saturday down near the Rockpile on the “Strike Force”. It looks like the yellowfin bite is up in the Hudson Canyon right now, so hopefully we will have another shot at them during their migration south.
Upcoming Tournaments
This weekend is the 34th Annual Challenge Cup, pitting anglers from the Cape May Marlin & Tuna Club against our own Ocean City Marlin Club. Ocean City boats have won the Challenge Cup the last 2 years. Last year’s event was tied at 3,075 points apiece after 2 days of fishing, but Ocean City won the tiebreaker with their last fish being released only 3 minutes before Cape May’s. Do you think Cape May will be gunning for us this year? I’m predicting another Ocean City win!!!
See you at the scales!
