Posted on July 7th, 2016
We had another good day for the Fish in OC offshore fleet today leading into the start of this weekend’s Ocean City Tuna Tournament. Starting tomorrow some of these tuna being caught may be worth thousands of dollars as Captains, mates and anglers pit their skills against the competition in the 29th edition of the event. There are 78 boats registered with a payout that will be $625,000.
The bluefin tuna are cooperating between 20 and 30 fathoms and there are some yellowfin being caught outside of that toward the canyons. The water in the back bays of Ocean City was really clear today which made for some good flounder fishing and the sea bass bite on the inshore wrecks was good as well.
David Grove and his crew had a fantastic day on the charter boat MARLI with Captain Mark Hoos and mate Mark Stephens fishing out of Sunset Marina. They had three bluefin tuna, seven yellowfin tuna and two dolphins.
Captain Luke Blume on the C Boys out of Sunset Marina had a great day trolling the ocean today. The crew of C Boys combined for two bluefin tuna, a yellowfin tuna, a false albacore and a mahi. C Boys also caught a small cobia on the way back to the dock when Captain Luke spotted two of them on a turtle near the Little Gull buoy just off the beach. Mate John Henry rigged a ballyhoo and jigged it in front of them and the smaller fish took the bait. Captain Luke said the other fish was “huge” and estimated it to be pushing 100 pounds.
Another Fish in OC charter partner having good luck today was Rhonda’s Osprey with Captain Joe Drosey out of Sunset Marina. Captain Joe put his crew on two bluefin tuna, including a nice 82 pounder, and four nice gaffer mahi. The crew also released another four bluefin tuna.
The Pumpin’ Hard also out of Sunset Marina had a good day offshore today. Pumpin’ Hard had one “over” bluefin, one “under” bluefin, one yellowfin tuna and some nice gaffer mahi.
My friend Krissi Baiocco was fishing on her dad Russell’s American Lady out of White Marlin Marina today with Captain Joe Joachimowski and her friends Jacki Maffei and Alana Lampaugh. The ladies had some good luck with the tuna capturing a 46″ bluefin and a 49″ bluefin. They also caught a nice gaffer mahi and got a cool shot of one of their fish about to feel the gaff.
Captain Chris Mizurak on the party boat Angler reported some good sea bass fishing on ocean structure today with nice fish up to four pounds.
Captain John Prather on the Ocean City Guide Service took advantage of the clean water in the bay today and had some really good flounder fishing. Captain John reported good throwback action all day and had four nice keepers for this group.
Bear at the Oceanic Pier reported some good flounder action this morning as well. Shawn from Reading, PA caught this 17 1/2″ flounder from the sea wall next to the Oceanic Pier on squid and “enormous” minnows from the pier.
I got a chance to take a short flounder fishing trip with my good buddy David Wells of DW Mowing today. Dave and I caught some live mullet this am and dropped them just north of the route 50 bridge in the east channel for about two hours around mid day. The water was really clean, but with the wind blowing pretty good out of the south, it made for a tough drift. We missed a few bites, but right at the beginning of the outgoing tide the bite turned on and we caught two throwback flounder and two nice keepers. My fish was 18″ and Dave’s was a nice 21″ fish. I also had something happen that has never happened to me in my 20+ years of flounder fishing in Ocean City. As I was reeling my bait up from the bottom I snagged a small flounder right in the side about 15 feet off of the bottom. It just goes to show you that flounder will sometimes follow baits to the surface, and as in this case, they probably swim higher in the water column more regularly than I think.
