Article by Joey Marowski
Welcome back to another offshore fishing report, I hope everyone enjoyed their weekend and managed to dodge the hailstorms. Unfortunately hail was about the only thing accumulating on the dock this week as this seasons slow start continues to drag on. A few bright spots in the last week included Chris Ragni and crew making the 100+ mile run to a pocket of warmer water on a good weather day and were handsomely rewarded with a nice catch of yellowfins. On Friday we made an 87 mile run ourselves and caught just as many tunas as the people fishing in the Ocean Pines pond.
Zack and the boys on the “Water Damage” did manage to catch a pair of yellowfins that morning, whom may have been lost as they reported the fish coming from 59 degree water which is much colder than yellowfins would typically be found. Luckily the void of pelagic species has been filled by decent catches of bottom dwellers such as sea bass and tilefish, as well as a few shark encounters from threshers and brown sharks. The weather looks beautiful for this week so hopefully anglers are able to make the most of this deep dropping weather and maybe even stumble upon some chilly tunas.
The good news is that to our south, the charter fleet out of Oregon inlet has been on an absolute tear, often returning to the docks by lunch times with limits of yellowfins as well as good catches of dolphin, wahoo, and billfish flags. Although we are more than ready for our own taste of that action, it is a positive sign that there are still high numbers of tunas to our south, ready to be ushered in to us with our first warm water eddy. Talking amongst mates and captains at the dock, there wasn’t much memory of a season where it had been this late into the year without a push of water of our own.
So anytime now , the docks will be buzzing with excitement as boats prepare to head to the first eddies that push within 70 miles. How do I know when and where this “good” water is that would be worth getting excited over? Satellite imagery shows the oceans surface temp and is the best way to track currents and the movements of pieces of water. There are multiple subscription services such as ROFFS and Ripcharts that can provide you with up to date information on water temperatures, chlorophyll content, and color all of which will indicate where fishing efforts should be concentrated.
In the next few weeks/months this information will be priceless to captains as they decide where our days will be spent. Hopefully within the next few reports we can talk about these eddies being within our canyons and discuss the fish being caught out of them. Until then I wish everyone good luck and encourage everyone to stock up on good deeds as we could use as much good karma as possible to kick start our season.
