Article by Capt. Lance Smith
Well, if you read Franky Pettolina’s column last week you would know that he and Mark Sampson have an unspoken competition to see who can get their column in the latest. My laptop has been on the fritz, and decided that it didn’t want to come on until Thursday at 2:00 in the morning so I watched the sun rise as I finished my column and sent it to Larry Jock, owner of the Coastal Fisherman. Apparently, I sent him the first column I wrote this year instead of the one I had just finished! Of course, my laptop would not turn back on so it is now lost for all time; and it was the greatest thing I have ever written (well, it might have been but I can’t honestly remember). So I had a few options. The first option was to borrow my niece’s laptop, which is a MAC with most of the keys missing from my grandnephew pulling them off. I couldn’t figure the stupid thing out so I had to wait for one of my other sisters to get home so I could use one of her twenty or so laptops. So, here I sit on Saturday morning trying to remember at least half of what I wrote, and I am pretty sure that I beat both Franky and Mark this week! (Editors note: He did!)
Anyway, the wind was supposed to calm down last week and it never did, which was no big deal because the LONGFIN was set to splash on Tuesday and there was still plenty of work to do on her once we got her back in the slip at home. Well, as it turns out (and I still can’t figure this out), they could not fit the travel lift between the boats on either side of us so we were stuck! They got it in but couldn’t get it out? It was no big deal because it gave us more time to do some touch-up work on the hull. However, my father and I were so tired of working on her every day for a month that we decided to go take my pontoon boat and do some flounder fishing.
So we went up onto the flats north of the Thorofare, which has always been my favorite early season spot. In fact, I can remember about 20 years ago when my friend Mike Snedaker and I first discovered the spot and we were the only ones to fish there. We would use these simple soft plastic lures with leadheads made by GOTCHA!, (the same company that makes the famous GOTCHA! plugs) called Trout Killers. I honestly don’t even know if they still make them but they were indeed killers. We would put a small strip of squid on each ones’ hook and slow troll through our secret hidden channel. We caught more flounder, bluefish and sea trout (weakfish) than I can ever remember and only in about 4 to 8-feet of water.
As with every secret in life, word gets out. One day while fishing there with my father, I see Mike’s brother, Chris, holding up about a 10 pounder to show me. Plus, he had two very attractive woman in bikinis with him! Now I don’t know if myself or Larry wrote too much about the place, or whether people found it on Goggle Earth (it pretty much sticks out like a broken thumb), but when we arrived about five boats were already there. When I say “there” I mean that they were close but not quite as shallow as I like to fish this time of year. So the old man and I began to fish our standard tandem rigged bucktails with white GULP! Swimming Mullets on them. The first thing I noticed when I retrieved my line to look for weeds was that the tails on these plastics were not twisting at all! Besides the scent, I believe that the action of the tail is just as important. They may have been leftover from last year’s stock, but I guarantee you that I am returning them!
With an incoming tide and the wind blowing out of the south for a perfect drift, I was certain we would come home with some flounder for dinner. The first fish caught was a 16.5-inch flounder by my father, so close yet so far away. Then I got slammed and immediately knew what I had as the fish burned through my drag. It was an eating size 20-inch bluefish. I slit his gills and threw him headfirst into a bucket of saltwater.
My next hookup really surprised me as my line just went slack. I proceeded to reel like crazy to figure out what was going on. Turns out that I had hooked a double header of blues on my tandem rig. Talk about a fight on my light flounder rod! I got them both to the net when one of them decided to leave a bit early by biting through the light monofilament and taking one of my bucktails with him. Now, at least Dad and I had dinner, but my Mother still refuses to even try a piece of perfectly prepared bluefish. Then the tide turned and with a south wind and an outgoing tide, any diehard flatty fisherman will tell you to just give up. Wind against tide equals no drift and no drift equals no flounder. So instead of giving up, Dad wanted to head to one of our other honey holes. I knew that the flounder don’t normally show up there until at least the second week of June, but to appease my mentor I motored us about a mile away. Here, where there was nothing to block the wind we were literally either standing still or being blown against the tide. No flounder there, but I did manage to hook up another doubleheader of decent sized blues. Again, one of them bit my bucktail off right at the net and Dad managed to net the remaining one. Now I had dinner for the two of us and a perfect mako bait that didn’t get bled out and went straight into the freezer when we got home. When the wind is against the tide, your best options are to fish around the Route 50 Bridge or anywhere that you can go that blocks the wind and gives you a decent drift.
Now on to something completely different. That small patch of water about 85 to 90 miles offshore did produce some dolphin and mahi last week. In fact, my friend across the canal on his 27-foot World Cat made a run for it and returned with a few mahi and small yellowfins. He also managed to hook up old whitey for about 30 seconds before it threw the hook. That was $15,000 lost in a flash. While I wouldn’t make that run on that boat (he is a very brave soul and an excellent tuna fisherman) I would certainly have done it on the “Longfin” if she were ready. If she were ready though, I may have opted to do some tile fishing on the way out or on the way back in. These fish may be somewhat difficult to locate (the golden variety especially), and a calm day and flat seas are awfully helpful. What we should be doing is taking a tip or two from our neighboring states to the north and south. You see, blueline tilefish congregate over bottom from 50 fathoms on out to the canyon edges and show up very well on a low frequency fish finder set on bottom lock. Plus they are delicious! We use small tuna jigging rods and heavy striper rods to get down to these deep dwelling fish. While dropping and reeling in that depth of water isn’t for everyone, we love it! A doubleheader of 30-inch bluelines on a light rod with 20 to 30 oz. of weight puts up a great fight and you might even hook into some giant sea bass as well.
The other great thing about tilefish is that they are available year round because the water temperature at those depths never changes. As for bait, they will eat ANYTHING! Clams, squid, any kind of fresh cut fish and even heavy diamond and flutter jigs will get you bit. Just remember to use circle hooks and braided line because of the depth we are talking about. Also, after you get your limit, quit fishing because these fish cannot survive the pressure change from hookset to the boat.
Until next week, get out there and get your picture in the pages of the greatest fishing paper in the Mid-Atlantic, the Coastal Fisherman of course!
Capt. Lance Smith is an outdoor writer and Captain of his family’s boat, “Longfin”. His column appears every other week in the Coastal Fisherman.
