Article by Dale Timmons
Sometimes it’s hard to get old…a couple of weeks ago when I wrote about how most of the Norfolk spot this year have been too large for good live baits for flounder, I talked about how many anglers had switched to small bunker or finger mullet. What I also meant to include, but my feeble mind forgot, was that these larger spot can be very effective when filleted and cut into nice long strips. In fact, on some days, an enticing strip bait will even out fish a live bait for big flounder. Last week one day I caught one fairly large spot while I was throwing my cast net for bunker. I filleted the spot and cut the fillet into strips. Those strips caught me several flounder that day, including one nice keeper. In addition to strips of spot, you can use bluefish, mullet, croaker, flounder belly, lizardfish or one of my favorites, sea robin. A young friend of mine told me last week that his fishing partner was filleting mullet one day and caught more flounder on strips than he did on live mullet. If you single hook a four to six inch strip bait, you might want to give the flounder a little extra drop back time, or better yet, use a tandem hook rig. Sometimes I just snell a slightly smaller hook with three or four inches of leader and crimp a small loop that just barely slips over the main hook to make a “stinger”. Believe me, it works…
Earlier this summer, I passed on some tagging information from several red drum that had been tagged with satellite pop off tags near Fisherman’s Island just north of the Chesapeake Bay-Bridge Tunnel. They were part of a study by Dr. John Graves. Now some more of the tags have been recovered, and their locations really make you wonder. One fish was at Goodwin Island at the mouth of the York River, which is where you might expect to find a summering red, but the other three were slightly out of the way, to say the least. One tag was released off Wachapreague, VA, which you might say is normal drum territory, but the fish was about 30 miles offshore. To top that, two other tags were released near the South Tower, including one that was southeast of the G tower, near the 50 fathom curve. We tend to think of red drum as an inshore fish, but large schools of reds are often found way offshore. Some theories have them spawning offshore, while others have always said they come into the surf to spawn, which makes me even more confused than my normal state of mind. One thing is for sure—they are going to have to get those big spotted tails moving if they want to be on the beach in time for drum season…
I was forwarded an e-mail news release last week from the New Jersey Division of Fish & Wildlife. It concerned a bust made by undercover New Jersey conservation officers on a party boat out of Belmar. The captain and his first mate were charged with deliberately killing undersized summer flounder and filleting them for bait. The officers counted at least 25 carcasses of flounder illegally caught and filleted. If this practice was repeated every day, imagine how many flounder were killed illegally just on this one boat. And the sad fact is that it just wasn’t necessary, because they probably could have caught just as many flounder on strips of other perfectly legal fish like the ones I described earlier in this column. No, this was a case of just plain stupidity and disregard for the law and the health of the species. I guess this guy just isn’t bright enough to realize that he is endangering his own business future by killing all these little flounder. Every flounder fisherman will have small fish swallow the hook once in a while, and we all hate to throw back a fish that we know will die, but I just tell myself that something will eat it, and it won’t go to waste. I use flounder belly strips that I trim off the sides of the fillets when I clean my legal fish. I freeze the strips and take them the next time I go. It is not difficult to use strip baits and stay within the law. Apparently, however, on the boat in question, it was a case of “anything goes,” as five of the paying customers were also charged with a variety of offenses, including taking undersized flounder and going over the daily bag limit. Unfortunately, this case will give all recreational anglers a black eye and provide more ammunition for the eco-extremists to use against us…
A few years back I wrote a Ben Sykes story that was kind of tongue-in-cheek about a future time when all the anglers were fishing for “trash fish” like sting rays and sea robins, and they were being bothered by pesky species like speckled trout, flounder, drum, etc. I hate to say it, but we are almost there. It is now early September, and in Maryland, at least, the summer flounder season will close after September 13. This closure comes during what has been one of the best flounder seasons that we have had in years. Now the feds are also talking about closing the sea bass season because of the potential for going over the catch quotas. I don’t know who caught all of those sea bass, because it sure wasn’t anglers along the Delmarva coast, who in general have had a dismal summer. Government bureaucrats and marine biologists often discount “anecdotal evidence,” and dismiss it with impunity, but their version of what is happening out there sure can be different from what those of us who are out fishing are experiencing. In the future I guess I’ll have to come up with new rigs for cownosed rays, lizardfish, and skates…maybe even a special horned dog lure…
Speaking of trash fish, for some anglers the common blowtoad, or northern puffer, comes under that description, but not for me. I caught a nice big blowfish one day last week (again on a strip of spot), the first I have seen in quite a while. It went straight into the cooler, followed by an honored place in the frying pan. Blowtoads are delicious, and many years ago there were so many they could be a pain, especially when you were surf fishing for kingfish and they would swallow your hook and bite the leader off. The rise of the big bluefish in the 70s and 80s, however, really hurt the blowfish population. I have watched big blues push small blowtoads up to the surface at the south inlet jetty and eat them like popcorn, and they have never really come back at this point. Many anglers throw them back simply because they don’t know how to clean them, but it’s really pretty simple. Cut straight down just behind the head, through the meat but not all the way. Slide a couple of fingers of one hand under the skin toward the tail while you grab the meat with the other hand and pull, kind of turning the fish inside out. You will have a nice solid piece of white meat with just a backbone. I even leave the dorsal and tail fins intact. Dust with a little House Autry or some other seasoning and fry to a golden brown…it’s pretty fit…
Contact Dale Timmons at [email protected] or call 410-629-1191.
