Article by Capt. BJ Pietryak
The Maryland waters continued to warm, bringing many more fish to our area. Several more keeper flounder are being caught in the back bays as well as the ocean. Sea bass saw a nice upswing, with more keepers being caught on nearshore wrecks.
Cobia are dominating the southern waters of Virginia and should be arriving any day in our backyard. Several speckled trout and weakfish are also being caught in our waters.
Nearshore Wrecks & Reefs
The nearshore wrecks are now holding big flounder along with a little better quality sea bass. Flounder are being caught on the normal Gulp baits as well as squid and minnow combinations. Fishing the down current side is the best place to target the flatfish, and the deeper water has been producing better quality fish than the more shallow areas, such as the Bass Grounds. The “Angler" had another great week with their clients catching some trophy size fish. The crew reports, although they had to pick through smaller fish, most anglers went home with some quality fish in their coolers. Anglers aboard the boat scored a few big flounder. The “Morning Star" reports good catches of sea bass on their full day charters along with some big fluke. The anglers were also rewarded with a unique catch of windowpane flounder. Over the past few years more and more of these fish are showing up in our waters. Judy Schaible caught a 24.5 inch, 4.8 lb. flounder while out fishing on an ocean structure.
“Covered Up Sportfishing” had a good trip catching tons of flatties as well as cutlass fish. Their biggest catch was 24 inches. The cutlass or ribbon fish were hitting hard on anything thrown into the water. This is early in the summer to see anglers catching this specie. Just south of the inlet the shoals are teaming with spot and mullet bringing in the cobia. Anchoring up on the rises and chunking pieces of mullet will bring in the man in the brown suit. Mullet on a circle hook free lined back to the fish should entice a bite. These fish make hard fast runs, so be sure to use a beefy rod and reel with a good drag system. Anglers should not be surprised when these fish make long strong runs. After the initial run most fish will begin to tire, making it easier to gain line and catch the fish.
Backwaters & Bays
The backwater areas of OC are really starting to heat up with anglers catching bigger fish more frequently as the water continues to warm. “Flip N Fins” was out tossing bucktails and scored some juvenile stripers off the rocks at the inlet. “Bay Bee Charters” reported that on many trips last week they were less than 30 minutes into the trip and got covered up with fish. Many of the them were short but still brought smiles to their anglers. They saw several big fluke come over the rails, and were quickly invited to be the guest of honor for dinner. The boat targeted fluke and bluefish. The crew reports that the fluke were more than willing to put on a show and bite anglers lines, although many were undersized. Even so, the anglers managed to bring home keeper fish on a regular basis.
The “Miss Ocean City" also had several good trips last week. Captain Joe reports the groups caught everything from flounder to bluefish on each trip. Several of these trips also had our Assateague Ponies making an appearance to delight tourists that had never seen our wild ponies. Rich Fiore landed two nice flounder in the back bays. One fish was 22.5 inches and the other was 19.5 inches. Brian Reynolds was out with his wife Crystal and dad Brian Sr. and found a few nice blues willing to take the hook. The biggest fish was around 30 inches. Brian fished later in the week with his buddy Sean and landed 5 rockfish and 5 bluefish. Sean landed the big striper measuring 32 fat inches.
Nick, Bob, and Craig Cropper had a good day getting a triple limit of blues off the south jetty. The group of course used a Roy Rig to catch their fish. Kevin McNelis fished the south jetty and landed a big flattie. Peter Renzi along with Skip Cortney had a good night fishing the Rt. 50 Bridge catching tons of stripers along with bluefish. The duo caught and released more fish than they could count by night's end. Bluefish and even rockfish will hang around the bridge pilings for most of the summer. These fish can be targeted by boat or from the bridge.
Surf Fishing
Surf fishing has slowed down with the warmer water. Plenty of spot and kingfish in the surf along with a few left over black drum and bluefish. Small pompano rigs are the primary lure being used. These lures are tipped with sand fleas, bloodworms or Fishbites. Clinton Ross was fishing high tide on Assateague Island using kingfish/pompano rigs tipped with shrimp. He was in for a surprise as a big black drum swallowed his rig and took off. After a nice fight on his light line he landed the fish safely onshore. The beach of Assateague Island is also giving up a few large red drum.
Dave “Chic” Chicchirichi Jr. got his personal best redfish. The 36 incher was caught using cut mullet. Dave also reported tons of kingfish in the surf.
Ben Witmer had a fun morning on the island hooking big fish that kept breaking off his Hi-Lo rigs. He also hooked and landed a nice dogfish shark. With all the bait located inshore, tons of smaller fish are targeting these bait fish, and of course that brings the sharks who target the bigger fish. Chad Wells was fishing near 88th Street using a kingfish rig tipped with a sand flea along with bloodworm Fishbites. During the morning he had several kingfish hook ups. Suddenly he was hit by a big black drum. Despite a tough fish on his kingfish rod he landed the brute safely onto the beach. §
Until next week,
Tight Lines and Fins Up
