Article by Larry Jock
This Week Last Year
•Offshore anglers found better yellowfin and bigeye action in the Baltimore and Wilmington Canyons, primarily in 200-300 fathoms.
•First longfin tuna of the season caught between Baltimore and Wilmington.
•Ocean flounder started being caught mixed in with the sea bass.
•Golden tile fish found in the Baltimore Canyon.
•First sheepshead of the year caught at the South Jetty. Others were caught as well on sand fleas and peelers.
•Better flounder bite was in the bay behind Assateague Island near the Duck Blinds. Throwback ratio was high.
•Small bluefish, stripers and shad were caught around the Rt. 50 Bridge.
Mother Nature really threw us a bunch of curveballs last week and saved her strikeout pitches for the weekend. Downright horrible!
The 20th Annual Mako Mania Shark Tournament was held last week and the bad weather forecast kept boats down to only 18. It’s a shame because the tournament also got hurt last year from bad weather. It’s such a great tournament so you hate to see this happen.
This year there were no sharks weighed which was surprising. Even with the bad weather and the crazy new mako regulations, I still expected to see at least a thresher arrive at the scale.
“Just Fold” ended up winning the Mako Release Division with 4 releases over their 2 days of fishing. They released 1 on Friday and 3 on Saturday, all while soaking mackerel and bluefish fillets in Massey’s Canyon. In second place was the “Sea Ment” with 3 mako releases from outside the Hot Dog. This group of anglers must love this tournament because they always seem to be in contention. This year, they also brought a 12.5 lb. bluefish to the scale on Saturday and held on to win 1st place in the Bluefish Division. Third place in the Mako Release Division went to the anglers on “Just One More” who recorded 2 releases on Friday at the Hot Dog.
Outside the tournament, the only shark we saw last week came in on Friday when the charter boat, “That’s Right” arrived with a large thresher shark that was caught on a whole mackerel near the Jackspot. We couldn’t get a weight on the fish because their marina didn’t have a scale large enough to weigh a big thresher.
The big news of the week was the awesome bigeye tuna bite on Friday. Several boats headed out to 500 fathoms between the Baltimore and Poor Man’s Canyons where they found 69 to 71-degree water. Anglers on the “Lucky Duck II” led the way with 8 beautiful bigeyes, weighing up to 138 lbs. “Rhonda’s Osprey” and the “Wrecker” also had a good day with each returning with 6 bigeyes in the box. The “Playmate” had 4 bigeyes with their largest one tipping the scale at 144 lbs.
Although Friday was the hot day with bigeyes aggressively feeding prior to the front rolling through over the weekend, we also saw eyeballs caught earlier in the week as well. On Tuesday, anglers on the “Marli” boated a 162 pounder in the Baltimore Canyon and the “Pumpin Hard” returned with 4 bigeyes, all around 100 lbs.
Anglers also found some yellowfins in the mix, but that bite just hasn’t taken off yet.
Inshore, the sea bass bite seems to have slackened a bit and some boats are switching over to ocean flounder fishing which is picking up steam. Although the sea bass bite hasn’t been great, Saturday saw the best action of the week with some headboat anglers returning with their limit or close to it. The fish were nice size, weighing up to 5 lbs. As mentioned earlier, the flounder bite in the ocean is getting better. The “Katydid” out of Lewes had a boat limit of 40 keepers on Thursday with fish up to 24-inches. Capt. Mike at Rick’s Bait & Tackle said that some of his customers found success around Site 11 and you usually can’t go wrong if you have good numbers at the Old Grounds.
In the bay, flounder fishing was tough last week with windy weather on many days creating dirty water conditions. One thing I have noticed so far this season is that the fish are fat! They have been spitting up loads grass shrimp. Although most of the flounder have been in the 17 to 19-inch range, on Tuesday, Budd Heim caught a 24-incher that weighed an even 6 lbs. Budd was drifting a bucktail tipped with a Gulp Swimming Mullet in the East Channel, north of the Rt. 50 Bridge.
The flounder bite hasn’t been limited to the East Channel and the Thorofare. We saw several come in from the bay behind Assateague. Last year at this time, anglers were catching flatties down by the Duck Blinds.
A couple of weakfish were caught last week. Rich Daiker captured a 6 lb. 8 oz. weakie on Thursday while fishing the incoming tide around the South Jetty. Anglers on the headboat, “Bay Bee” also caught and released a couple of small weakfish on Sunday at the mouth of the Commercial Harbor.
Bluefish are still roaming the waters in the bay and seem to be most plentiful around the Rt. 50 Bridge. Buddy Martin caught a 14 lb. 4 oz. chopper on Monday night while using a 1 oz. jig head tipped with a Super Fluke.
Around the South Jetty, anglers are finding short stripers, tautog (season closed), some bluefish and good size sheepshead. On Friday, Ron Nickey on the charter boat, “On the Run” boated a 26-inch, 11 lb. 12 oz. sheephead while using sand fleas for bait.
In the surf, snapper bluefish and sharks are leading the way and we continue to see cobia hooked in the suds. Last week, an angler fishing off Fenwick caught and released a 37-incher. This is at least the third cobia caught in the surf this year.
Upcoming Tournament
This weekend is the Ocean City Marlin Club Small Boat Tournament with weigh-ins at Sunset Marina on Saturday and Sunday from 3:00 PM to 6:30 PM. Anglers have both inshore and offshore categories to choose from and can fish 1 of 2 days. You DO NOT have to be a Marlin Club member to participate.
Until next week, I’ll see you at the scales!
