Article by Larry Jock
This time of year, with most people getting kids ready for school, or having already burned all their vacation days, we don’t seem to have as many boats on the water, translating into fewer fish caught. However, those that are getting out are coming back with some nice catches of flounder, croaker and some dolphin and marlin releases for those venturing further offshore.
Crabbing
A young lady stopped by our office on Monday and mentioned that our MD regulation page had the wrong size listed for hard shell crabs. We have it listed at 5-inches, which is correct. The lady didn’t realize that the Chesapeake Bay changes their size limit for blue crabs to 5 1/4-inches on July 15th, but this does not pertain to crabs caught in the coastal bays. We are also allowed to keep female crabs, where in the Chesapeake Bay, you are not.
Flounder
Although the number of flounder being caught in the bay seemed down last week when compared to what we typically saw throughout this season, it looks like the average size of the fish being caught was definitely larger. Several big flounder were landed in the bay, highlighted by the 31-incher caught in the East Channel by John Folk and the 27-incher caught by Walter Wong earlier in the week around the Rt. 50 Bridge.
Now is typically the time when we start to see flounder staging at various locations in the bay, preparing for their migration to ocean structure. The East Channel, around the Rt. 50 Bridge, along the rocks on the north side of the Inlet and around the South Jetty are all good locations to find deep holes holding staging flatties.
The better flounder action can be found in the ocean on various reefs and wrecks. The head boats “Angler” and “Morning Star” are both returning with excellent catches of good size flounder. Other anglers are heading to Russell’s Reef, Great Gull, the African Queen and wrecks further offshore to find their limits of flounder. The largest flounder caught last week was the 9 lb. 11 oz. doormat caught on an inshore wreck by junior angler, Nathan Sheirburn. Drifting or anchoring on ocean structure while fishing with live spot, bunker or even the larger Gulp! artificial baits has produced some high quality catches. If you can make it out to ocean structure, that is the way to go this time of year.
Striped Bass
The good striped bass action that anglers experienced around the South Jetty recently tapered off last week. Some fish were caught during early morning hours, but most came up short.
Sheepshead
On Thursday, Jung Ae Bae landed an 11 pounder while fishing with green crabs on the north side of the Ocean City Inlet. On Saturday, both Danny Lewis and Naylor Bramble each caught a nice size sheepshead while fishing with green crabs at the South Jetty.
Croaker
We saw a good number of croaker caught in the bay behind Ocean City. You really can’t narrow it down to one location being the best, since we saw them coming in from the East Channel, the West Channel, up around Harbour Island and in the bay behind Assategue Island. The largest hardhead was caught on Saturday by Zane Mull when he hooked an 18 1/2-incher in the West Channel off Martha’s Landing. Most of the croaker were in the 10 to 13-inch range and were caught by anglers using Fishbites bloodworms for bait.
In the Surf
The same old lineup of Norfolk spot, kingfish, snapper bluefish and flounder are challenging anglers during the daytime, with sharks and rays coming alive at night. We reported a hammerhead shark being caught a couple of weeks ago by an angler fishing off Assateague Island, and on Sunday, another smaller hammerhead was also caught off Assateague on a bluefish rig baited with a chunk of bunker.
Sharks
The most interesting catch of the week was reported to us by Steve Fink, who broke off a 6-foot hammerhead shark while flounder fishing in the Thorofare.
Tuna
Although a few yellowfin were caught during the week, it is still safe to say that the tuna bite has been pretty bad.
One bright spot was the 181.5 lb. bigeye tuna caught on Tuesday by an angler on the charter boat, “Restless Lady” during an overnight trip to the Washington Canyon.
On Thursday, anglers on the “Empty Pockets” released 6 bluefin tuna while fishing in the Poor Man’s Canyon. Also on Thursday, the charter boat, “Foolish Pleasures” returned with 4 yellowfins from the Poor Man’s and a few others were hooked in the Wilmington Canyon, where the “Reel Desire” caught a 54 pounder on Friday. On Saturday, the largest tuna caught during the Labor Day White Marlin Tournament came in on the “Reel Joy” when Ron Reid boated a 54.8 lb. yellowfin.
Marlin
We saw a lot of white marlin release flags flying last week along with good numbers of blue marlin flags, especially on Friday, from boats fishing in the Poor Man’s Canyon. Although we didn’t see many double-digit white marlin catches, it looked like most of the boats were returning with 3 to 9 releases from 60 to 100 fathoms in the Poor Man’s and Washington Canyons. The “Reelentless” did have 12 white marlin releases on Friday while fishing in 80 fathoms in the Poor Man’s.
Upcoming Tournament
This Sunday is the 7th Annual Bahia Marina Flounder Pounder. The Captain’s Meeting and sign-up is from 8:00 AM to 9:30 AM. Fishing begins at 10:00 AM with lines out of the water by 4:30 PM. Anglers must stay between the Assateague Bridge and the Fenwick Ditch and are not allowed to go outside the Ocean City Inlet.
Bahia Marina always puts on a fun tournament, and with some larger fish being caught in the bay, it should be a good one.
See you at the scales!
