Article by Capt. Mark Sampson
As an angler who has now been poking around this planet for more than just a couple of years, I often find myself reflecting back on how the fishing used to be back when I was younger. And if I happen to have the ear of someone who is much younger than I (which is most people these days) you can bet that my “back in the day” stories are going to be about fish that were always more plentiful, bigger, and caught much closer to shore than they are today. At least that’s how a lot of us old guys like to remember the fishing was back then.
But when I started writing this column it was just a little past Thanksgiving and I was still in a “count my blessings” frame of mind and so prompted to put together a short list of things about our local fishing that are actually better today than they were in the past. In the process I realized that “yes” things are different today, but maybe they aren’t all that bad after all!
Tilefish
I remember back in the late 70’s and 80’s when anglers would occasionally shut their boats down in 50-or-so fathoms of water and drop lines down for tilefish. Without the advantage of circle hooks, the ultra thin braided lines we use today, and electronics that make it easy to position a boat precisely over a specific patch of seafloor, it was more than just a little challenging to get a bait in front of a fish living in a hole more than 350-feet down, let alone to properly impale it on a hook for the ride all the way up to the boat. There were a few local anglers who had their act together enough that they were able pull off some nice catches now and again, but it was a pretty rare sight to see a tilefish brought in. After a while, what little bit of a fishery there was just sort of collapsed and catches were so meager that I think everyone just stopped fishing for them.
Of course all that has changed and now that technology has allowed anglers to overcome many of the inherent problems associated with bottom fishing in such deep water, these days it’s not at all uncommon to have more than just a few boats return to the docks at the end of the day with coolers filled with golden and blueline tilefish and possibly a few other deep sea bottom species.
The extraordinary resurgence of this fishery might not have as much to do with there being more fish as it is that anglers now have better tools to fish for them with. Precise GPS positioning, circle-hooks that (even without a hook-set) will latch on and not let go, and thin braided lines that have such little water resistance that anglers no longer need 10-pounds of weight to find the bottom with. Of course, with so many anglers bringing back so many tilefish each day only time will tell how long this fishery will continue to produce these numbers of fish.
Swordfish
While I’m on the subject of sending baits down into the abyss, how about the latest craze of deep-dropping for swordfish? When I was a kid, the only way recreational anglers would target swordfish was to try and troll a large rigged squid in front of one that they might spot cruising or “sunning” on the surface. Needless to say, there weren’t a lot of swordfish caught back then, at least not until anglers started fishing for them at night. With the help of cyalume sticks on the line to illuminate baits that were set anywhere from the surface to many hundreds of feet below the boat, anglers were suddenly catching more than just an occasional swordfish. In fact, there were enough fish being caught that for a few years there was actually an overnight swordfish tournament that was run out of Ocean City. That all came to an end when the (just like tilefish) fishery collapsed and swordfish once again became a rare and unusual catch.
I don’t know who was the first to start deep dropping for swords off Delmarva but it seemed that almost overnight we suddenly had a very viable new fishery for swordfish with a relatively high chance for success! Of course, this technique has been successful off Florida for a number of years so it’s no surprise that it working up here as well. Just like tilefish fishing, much of the success of deep drop swordfishing can be attributed to the development of thin braided line that allows anglers to fish their baits at great depths and precisely where they need to be.
Sheepshead
I know I’m showing my age here but I can remember when the only reason anglers would fish the inlet was to catch seatrout. Sure, there would often be a few bluefish caught and an occasional flounder, but trout were the main quarry and throughout the summer and into the fall there was some really good action with fish that would sometimes weigh over 8 pounds. Decent size seatrout are all but extinct these days but who would have thought that their old residence would now be populated by sheepshead? Until a decade or so ago these black and white crab-crunching-mussel-eating fish were rarely if ever caught around here but now from midsummer right into the fall anglers will often enjoy extraordinary fishing for sheepshead that sometimes weigh in the double digits!
Lots of stripers
Striper fishing here on the coast has gone through a lot of transitions over the years. A long while ago virtually no stripers were caught at all. Then surf anglers would grab a few big fish off the beach in the spring and fall, then the inlet’s south jetty was a place you could go to catch mostly school size fish in the late summer and early fall. A few years we had an excellent fall run of big fish in the downtown area of the bay. Eventually that inshore fishery just sort of fizzled out but anglers started catching the heck out of them by trolling lures or even jigging for them a mile or so off the beach. But as nothing lasts forever, in recent years the fall trolling for the migratory fish has dwindled down to just a trickle of what it used to be.
However, the good news about striper fishing these days is that our coastal bays are now home to a resident population of fish that provide anglers with fun opportunities all year. Most of the fish in our bays are less than the 28-inch minimum size but they’re still a lot of fun to catch and there’s enough big fish in the neighborhood to give anglers a little hope that at any moment they might be just one cast away from catching dinner. From the mouth of the inlet to as far up or down the bay as you might wish to run, there’s striped bass in the channels, under the bridges, up in the marshes and even under the docks at a lot of the marinas.
King & Spanish Mackerel
It used to be that you could drag spoons around the Jack Spot and some of the other shoals 15-20 miles offshore and catch the heck out of king mackerel. But then, a decade or so ago, we went from having a great “kingfish” fishery to virtually “nothing” when the fish just seemed to disappear from Delmarva’s waters. Lack of bait? Water quality? Who knows? But for some reason the kings just quit on us!
The good news is that kingfish are back and they’ve brought their little cousins the Spanish mackerel with them. In fact, over the last couple of years the Spanish macks have come on stronger than probably anyone can remember. Even more good news is that through much of the summer some of the best Spanish action has been within 3 miles of the beach and in some cases anglers were hooking them inside the inlet! While the king mackerel haven’t been as inclined to come in as close to the beach, a short hop of 5-15 miles is all that anglers have needed to have a good shot of getting a hook into a few.
Cobia
Delmarva anglers have been catching cobia for years, there’s nothing new about that, but until recently cobia have almost always been a bycatch made by someone who accidentally hooked one while they were fishing for something else, or had one unexpectedly swim up to their boat and they were able to get a bait or lure in front of it and got it to bite. But in the last few years anglers have actually been able to go out and target cobia with a fair amount of success. It’s hard to say if we now have more cobia showing up in our waters each summer, or if anglers have just become more proficient at making the right moves that will get one on a hook - I expect it’s a little of both. Whatever the case, more cobia have been landed off our coast in the last 3 years than probably the last 3 decades.
Big Flounder
Ocean City might claim to be the “white marlin capital of the world”, but I’m guessing that around here more people fish for flounder than all the other fish combined. And that’s been going on for a long-long time. In fact, my earliest recollection of fishing is when I was a little kid and my father rented a boat at Capt. Joe’s Marina (where the Lazy Lizard is now) and we went out for flounder. Back then, like now, local anglers were absolutely crazy over flounder! Of course, folks intent on catching flounder have traditionally done so in our coastal bay waters, which is still a productive area to find them today. However, particularly over the last decade or so, it’s become common knowledge that if you really want to have a shot at catching more than just one or two big flounder in the course of a day - you’ve got to get offshore and drop your lines around a wreck or reef. “No” the offshore bite of flounder is not as consistent throughout the season as it is in the bay, and “yes” there is a need for a more seaworthy boat in the ocean than what is necessary for the bay, and unlike bay fishing, sea sickness can be a spoiler for some folks. But for those who have the boat and the stomach for ocean fishing and are able to hit it when the flounder are on the structures and hungry - the flounder action can be phenomenal!
Artificial reefs
While on the subject of offshore wrecks and reefs, it’s probably worth pointing out that no one should take for granted the incredible network of artificial wrecks and reefs we have off our coast. It used to be that if you wanted to fish a wreck you’d head off in that direction and hope that when you got close you wouldn’t see another boat already on it which would mean that you’d probably have to run a bunch of miles to another wreck and hope it wasn’t already occupied. Needless to say, the hassle and frustration of trying to pluck a few fish off of one of the very few structures we had off our coast back then kept a lot of anglers from even getting in the game.
Thanks to Capt. Monty and the Ocean City Reef Foundation those days have been gone for a long time and they’re never coming back! We now have so much structure scattered around offshore that if you head out to fish a particular piece and someone is already there, it’s usually just a matter of moving a few hundred yards or maybe ½ mile at the most to set up on something else. Concrete blocks, pipes, steel ships, barges, Army personnel carriers, subway cars and so much more “stuff” has been strategically positioned at the various reef sites that it’s doubtful that in a lifetime of fishing anyone could fish it all. For many decades this structure will continue to be a benefit to the water quality, the fish, and certainly the fishermen.
These days our boat motors are more reliable, electronics provide functions we could never have even imagined was possible, weather reporting is easier to obtain and more reliable, we have more and better equipped marinas, tackle, and repair shops, fresher bait, lifts to store our boats, and all kinds of ways to stay in touch and in tune with what’s going on in the fishing community. So when it comes to fishing around Delmarva “NO” things aren’t what they used to be, they’re not worse, they’re just different. There are more than just a few things that I really miss from the way it was “back in the day”, but like so many things in life, when one door closes - another opens. And after looking at my Thanksgiving list, I’m thinking we have a lot of open doors waiting for us as we move into the 2022 season. §
