Article by Larry Jock
Welcome back to another season of the Coastal Fisherman.
What a difference a year makes. Last year at this time, good size bluefish were all over the bay and in the surf, yellowfins and bluefins were caught near the Triple 0’s and the first mako shark was brought to the scale on April 28th after being hooked at the Rockpile. This year, after a very cold winter, fishing is off to a slow start. A long stretch of bad weather has not only dampened fishing action for those who can get out but it has also delayed the larger boats from getting in the water due to boat work still needing to get done. This past weekend we finally saw some nice weather in Ocean City and the boatyards were a beehive of activity.
Not uncommon for this time of year, tautog are dominating the action and we have seen some really nice fish hit the dock. Back on April 18th, Ron McClelland threw a 23 lb. 9 oz. blackfish on the scale to set the bar high for heaviest of the season. That will be a tough one to beat. The fish was caught during a trip aboard the charter boat, “Fish Bound” in 120-feet of water where Capt. Kane reported water temperatures at 44-degrees. On Saturday, the “Fish Bound” had 12 tog weighing over 10 lbs. including a 19 pounder. Since most of the fish were females, the anglers only kept a few. On Sunday, Capt. Kane’s anglers returned with 11 tog, ranging in weight between 6 and 7 lbs., and had to hit a number of wrecks to make it happen. Conditions were not ideal and interestingly, mate Kevin Twilley said that he threw a Go Pro camera down to where one angler wasn’t having much success, only to see numerous tautog surrounding the bait. They just weren’t biting and conditions made bait presentation difficult. The good news is that the ocean water temperature increased into the 50’s with warm weather coming down the pike.
Tautog fishing in the bay has been tough with some short tog being hooked along the rocks in the West Channel (Martha’s Landing) and off the 3rd Street Bulkhead.
Sea bass season opens up on May 15th with a 12.5-inch minimum and a 15 fish creel limit. There is a meeting later this week and things could change. Rumors have it that we could pick up 2 weeks of fishing in the fall, so stay tuned.
Shark fishermen were dealt a blow over the winter when the feds increased the minimum size for mako sharks from 54-inches to 83-inches, basically shutting down the fishery. There is still a rumor going around that they may reconsider and soften the blow, going to a 72-inch minimum.
Flounder fishing has just started to pick up in the bay, primarily over the Thorofare flats for anglers trolling Rat-L-Traps or bucktails tipped with Gulp artificial baits. The largest flounder caught so far this year, a 26-incher weighing 7 lbs. 8 oz., was hooked on the flats by Allyson Airey on April 22nd. On Saturday, a few anglers had a good day flounder fishing on the flats. Mike Johnston, who really has the slow trolling technique down, caught his limit in windy conditions. The water clarity wasn’t great or the bite would have probably been even better. A few boats ventured south to the bay behind Frontier Town but they mostly ran into short flatties. Lamont Hilbert did manage to get a 19-incher on a Gulp artificial bait.
Small striped bass, in the 15 to 20-inch range, have been found over the last couple of weeks hanging around all three bridges. There were a lot of anglers fishing from the Rt. 50 Bridge last weekend, but they mostly dealt with small fish and an occasional flounder according to John at Alltackle.
Surfcasters fishing off Assateague Island this past weekend tangled with a lot of skates in addition to small stripers and some black drum. The small schoolies were right in the wash and caught on a variety of baits including sand fleas, bunker and artificial soft baits.
As we head into the season, it would be a good time for folks to consider joining the Ocean City Reef Foundation or renewing their membership. This is a great organization that does a tremendous amount of work that benefits our fishing community. Just this past weekend, Capt. Monty on the “Morning Star” took a group of volunteers out to the Bass Grounds where they dropped 6.5 TONS of concrete block. That’s a lot of reef! The Reef Foundation’s annual fundraising dinner is on May 6th at Seacrets and for the 15th straight year I will be working the door. Hopefully they will have a great turnout and I look forward to seeing a lot of our readers at the event.
