Article by Sue Foster
It’s the last Coastal Fisherman of the year. The summer seemed to just fly by! Thanks to Larry Jock for putting out the best free fishing magazine around! What to do without the Coastal Fisherman in the fall? Well, just be sure to save a copy with the pictures and size limits of the fish. Then go online at www.coastalfisherman.net and keep up with the daily fish reports, videos and breaking news. You can also read past issues that you might have missed by going to the website and clicking on “Issues.” Scroll down to the bottom and click on the “Volume” and “Date” of the issue and enjoy reading all over again! You can also go to the Coastal Fisherman website and click on “photos” and see all the photos for the season, or click on videos, and watch all the videos for the season (really cool), or you can click on recipes and check out all Mama Jock’s good seafood recipes. There’s even a very nice charterboat directory with phone numbers if you want information on a bay or ocean charterboat.
Besides Larry Jock’s Coastal Fisherman daily report, you can go to my Fishing Report that I write every Monday or Tuesday morning at www.atbeach.com/fishrpt.html. The report will be online until around Xmas time.
So, with the Coastal Fisherman season coming to a close, what can I say about this past season? Being in the retail tackle business, it was quite a scary season starting out. We had a new Maryland Fishing License on the coast that made me wonder if business would ever be the same. Luckily, most anglers that came into the store bought a license. I had a few anglers decide not to buy one, and these held out more on “principle” than money.
At first, the whole license thing was a nightmare, because the State of Maryland did not have the software in place for the tackle stores and the only official agent in the area was Wal-Mart, our biggest competitor. After a few trying weeks of using the Public Website and a toll-free number that did not work as well as it was supposed to, Senator Mathias stepped in on our behalf and demanded that the Maryland Department of Natural Resources come up with something workable for the tackle stores in Ocean City. We got a 3-part paper license that was quick and easy to give anglers “on the spot.” I would like to publicly thank Senator James Mathias Jr. again for his support and quick response to help us out in Ocean City!
The other obstacle for Ocean City, MD this spring was the rebuilding of the West Ocean City Boat Ramp at the Commercial Harbor. Early season anglers had to find other boat ramps to use causing the tackle stores in the immediate area to feel the pain of lost revenue. Part of the boat ramp was finally finished on the Friday of Memorial Day weekend and now Ocean City has a nice new boat ramp. The $450,000 project, paid for with a combination of state and federal funding, included the removal of the existing two-lane ramp built in 1988 and replacing it with a six-lane facility complete with a supporting bulkhead, fixed piers and floating docks.
Once the fishing license problem was resolved and the boat ramp got open, the season went along smoothly. We had a great striper run in the surf this past May and lots of anglers came to the shore to try their luck.
But economics continued to play a role in our town of Ocean City. Even though the flounder size limit was one-inch shorter than last year, I noticed we had fewer anglers from Pennsylvania but we had more visitors from New Jersey and New York than I could ever remember. After talking with several people, it turned out that it was less expensive for visitors to come to Ocean City than to travel to the resort beaches of New York and New Jersey. I would say that in our trying economic times the Town of Ocean City and the Chamber of Commerce has done a wonderful job of promoting our town. There seems to always be some convention or event happening almost every weekend. Motels and hotels have done a great job offering 3 and 4 day vacation packages encouraging vacationers to come to our town. I would personally like to thank all of them as well.
Our summer fishing season was pretty typical. We had a nice run of flounder, but not huge amounts of keepers. In the long run, this will keep us “safe” for next year. At least I hope so! We didn’t have much of a croaker run in the bay. The ones that were caught were not very big. I think we took one picture of a croaker all summer! At the end of the season, we had big ones offshore in the ocean, so they were somewhere all summer, but we were not sure where. We had a scattering of stripers all summer at the South Jetty and around the pilings of the Route 50 Bridge. Enough small sea trout were caught this summer to encourage us to think that maybe this species will make a comeback.
The surf was active all summer with kingfish, spot, sharks and giant rays that destroyed a number of my bargain basement economy surf combos! (Yes, I replaced them all!)
Indian summer is moving along with more catches of snapper blues than I saw last year. I hope it lasts.
Offshore sea bass fishing was pretty good on the whole. I got out several times with Capt. Monty on the “Morning Star” and enjoyed some good fishing and interesting conversations about offshore reef structure.
If you are visiting our Fenwick Tackle store in Fenwick Island, DE, go next door to the Bike Shop and ask Jay to show you his underwater videos. Wow!
“What to look forward to?”
More snapper blues in the surf. Upcoming drum run on Assateague. Hopefully, some decent striper fishing inshore and offshore if the weather cooperates all the way until Xmas. Tautog fishing will get better and better up through the end of November. Flounder should be around till the end of November. Yea! We have a longer season than last year in Ocean City!
Thanks again to Larry Jock, Senator Mathias, the Town of Ocean City, the Ocean City Chamber of Commerce, the hotels and motels in Ocean City, my incredible staff of employees and of course, all our faithful readers and vacationers that come to Ocean City. Without you, I would have no tackle stores and no job!
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.
