Article by Larry Jock
It was a tough week for fishing with Mother Nature bringing us windy and rainy weather right up until Thursday afternoon when something called the “sun” popped out and improved everyone’s attitude along with the bite in the bay and off our coast.
Flounder
In the bay, anglers continue looking for the elusive flounder, but they had much better luck than at any time so far this year. The best location was one that is common for this time of year and that is the flats, north of the Thorofare. When you make the westward turn from the East Channel to the Thorofare, and you get to the houses on your left, you want to look towards your starboard for a channel that runs north. That channel will lead you up to the flats where flounder fishing is typically good in early May. Your boat needs to be able to drift in 2-3 feet of water because it gets awfully shallow in this area. On Saturday, the flats produced a 25-inch flounder for junior angler, Sadie Peters while she was drifting Gulp! artificial baits.
Anglers also caught flounder in the Thorofare over the long weekend. Bob O’Malley fished the Thorofare on Friday and caught a 24-incher on a live minnow in 64-degree water at the bottom of the tide. On Saturday, Rudy Sorrentino and Bob Jago landed 6 keepers on live minnows.
On Sunday morning, Charles Jenkins stopped by the office to have his picture taken with the 22-inch flounder he caught while dangling shiners off a float launched from the Rt. 50 Bridge. Later in the day, we saw striper sniper Pat Hurley bring back his limit of 4 flounder measuring 17, 18, 19 and 20-inches after drifting minnows in the bay behind the Ocean City Airport.
Tautog & Sea Bass
With nice seas on Saturday, we saw a lot of boats venture outside the inlet to ocean reefs and wrecks, looking for tautog to fill their coolers and sea bass to catch and release, since the season doesn’t open until May 19th.
The Great Eastern Reef, the Jackspot and Russell’s Reef were all productive locations for tog. On Saturday, Dave Walker and Bill Brown had 8 tog at the Great Eastern Reef with their largest weighing in at 15 lbs. 6 oz. On the same day, anglers on the “Jezebel” also headed to the Great Eastern Reef where they returned with a couple of tog weighing up to 12 lbs 9 oz. Capt. Chester Sadowski reported that they had all the sea bass they wanted while fishing over the rubble.
Not to be outdone by any of his mates or customers, Capt. Chris Mizurak on the headboat, “Angler” boated a personal best 15 pounder while fishing at the African Queen wreck. Capt. Chris said that they were catching mostly small tog throughout the trip until the beast attacked his green crab.
Walter Moore, Sr. and his son, Walter, Jr. released a load of tautog at Russell’s Reef on Saturday before heading to the Thorofare where they boated a 19-inch flounder in 58-degree water.
On Sunday, John Johansen boated an 11.3 lb. tog during a trip inshore of the Jackspot aboard the charter boat, “Fish Bound”.
Anglers are still picking at tautog in the Ocean City Inlet around the South Jetty and along the rocks off Martha’s Landing, on the west side of the bay. The charter boat, “Lucky Angler” had a group of junior anglers on board and ended up catching tog at both locations on Saturday.
In the Surf
Action off Assateague Island and the beaches in Ocean City remains slow with the occasional black drum and striper biting in the suds. Surfcasters continued to battle more skates than they care to and now have to contend with an influx of pufferfish in water that has just broken the 50-degree mark.
Upcoming Tournament
The first local tournament on the schedule is the Ocean City Marlin Club Bluefish Tournament scheduled for May 24th & 25th. If you need more information you can call the Marlin Club at 410-213-1613.
In the meantime, if you come back to the dock and want your picture taken for possible inclusion in an upcoming issue, just give us a call at 410-213-2200 and we can meet you at the dock.
See you at the scales!
