Article by Capt. Mark Sampson
Last summer, I got a call from a fellow who wanted to know if we had been catching any bluefish offshore. When I told him "yes" he immediately set about telling me how it's been 20-years since he's been bluefishing off Ocean City and he was looking forward to taking his kids out to enjoy the same kind of fun that he remembered having. His comments prompted me to mention that, unfortunately, the bluefish action we have off our coast now is nothing like it was 20 or more years ago. I asked if what he remembered of his trip was trolling around and catching big 8 to 12 pound bluefish? He said "yes" and then went on to tell me about how tough it was to bring the big fish to the boat, but on a half-day charter trip they caught about a dozen of the big "choppers" and that's what he wanted to do again.
As much as I wanted to book a charter with this guy I had to be honest and bring him up to speed on how much things have changed when it comes to catching bluefish. "Back in the day," I said, "you could run just a few miles offshore anytime from April to December and it was almost guaranteed that you'd catch more bluefish than you knew what to do with." I told him that in the 20-years since he last fished around here the big bluefish that used to be such a consistent catch off our coast have all but disappeared. "We still catch plenty of bluefish." I told him, "But they're all in the 1 to 3 pound size.” I went on to mention that with all the little ones, there must be big bluefish out there somewhere, but just where that is no one seems to know.
There's a lot of stories that can be told about how things have changed from 20 or more years ago. "Back in the day" is a phrase many of us "senior" anglers often use to kick-off narratives about the differences between then and now. And while when precisely "the day" was is not exactly set in stone, suffice to say that to qualify for a real "back in the day" story an angler needs to, at the very least, be reaching back a decade or more.
Memories of the big "chopper" bluefish fishery translates to some of the best "back in the day" of the entire mid-Atlantic region. It's truly hard to comprehend now how abundant they were back then and how rare it is for them to be caught now. There are lots of little ones, but no big ones - strange!
Similar to the big bluefish, "back in the day" we also had a lot of big sea trout (weakfish). Anytime from May to November you could slip down to the Ocean City Inlet and cast bucktails, Mr.Twisters or Stingray Grubs and catch sea trout that might run from 4 to 8 pounds, with some hitting the double digits. In the fall, anglers could fish 1 to 5 miles offshore with strips of squid on the bottom and easily fill a cooler of 2 to 4 pounders. Mixed in with the offshore trout were plenty of 1 to 2 pound croakers. Today, offshore bottom fishermen can still catch lots and lots of sea trout and croaker, but they are lucky to catch anything even close to being keeper size. Maybe the big trout and big croaker are hiding in the same place as the big bluefish!
“Back in the day”, the offshore season would start around the end of March when huge schools of Atlantic mackerel would congregate over the shoals from 5 to 15 miles out. Anglers would fill the rails of local headboats and steadily pull on fish just as fast as they could get a line in the water. The schools of mackerel were absolutely massive and for years were as consistent as the calendar. But now that fishery is just done, gone and almost forgotten!
“Back in the day” some decent weather, a couple dozen minnows and a morning to drift the bay was all that was needed bring home 6 to 8 keeper flounder. Back then much of the best action throughout the summer was in the main channel from about 13th to 28th street and in the Thorofare. “Back in the day”, anglers would also fill coolers with blowfish, which are such a rare catch today that most folks don't even know how good they are to eat.
While a ballyhoo rigged on a small circle hook with light mono leader constitutes a standard rig for white marlin these days, back in the day the same bait was run on a #9 stainless steel leader and a 9/0 J-hook. For blue marlin anglers would rig a big mackerel or squid on #12 wire and one or two J-hooks. Dredges where not yet in use, but fishermen would troll a couple teasers off the riggers. “Back in the day”, tuna weren't targeted as much as they were the bycatch of marlin fishermen.
It wasn't all for the better because “back in the day” you rarely heard of any rockfish being caught and certainly no triggerfish or sheepshead. Wreck fishing was better, but there were fewer wrecks and reefs and they were harder to find because there was no GPS and only a few boats had LORAN. In addition, boats were slower, smaller, more unreliable and weather forecasting was horrible! So whether it was better or worse there's no need to worry about the way things were because 20-years from now, today will be "the day" - and I hope you have a good one!!
Capt. Mark Sampson is an outdoor writer and captain of the charter boat, “Fish Finder”, docked at the Ocean City Fishing Center. During the winter months, Capt. Mark runs charters in the Lower Keys.
