Posted on April 18th, 2016
It was an absolutely beautiful weather day in Ocean City today! Sunny skies, warm temperatures and light winds made for shorts and short sleeves and a great reason to get out on the water. The fishing is really picking up as well with steady throwback striper action at the bridges, tautog on the inshore wrecks and reefs as well as in the bay now, some big bluefish in the surf and back bay and flounder fishing that is just getting started.
As the fishing improves in Ocean City on a daily basis I continue to get some awesome reports from anglers fishing over on the Chesapeake Bay for trophy rockfish that are having some awesome luck.
I received a report and pic of the biggest rockfish that I’ve seen so far this season when Andrew Clothier reported that he and his crew on the Chum Bucket had their best day ever fishing out of Edgewater, MD. The crew had a limit of fish with one 39″ fish, two 40″ fish, one 44″ fish and one bruiser that measured 52″ and tipped the scale at 54 pounds.
Captain John Griffith had a terrific opening weekend fishing the northern Tangier Sound on the Mishap. John reports nine fish in two days of 40″, 41″, 41″, 42″, 43″, 44″, 46″, and two 50″ fish. The largest fish caught by Sam pictured below was 48 pounds! The fish were caught trolling single and double mojos.
Austin Brittingham of Crabs to Go had caught a nice rockfish while fishing with Matt Stevens, Hannah Bowden and Alex Carey when he landed this 42″ fish on a white umbrella rig in the Tangier Sound.
I received an email from Joe Zimmer III reporting some terrific fishing action for he and his 15 year old son Gavin on a recent trip to Guatemala where the crew posted these very impressive stats.
Three days of fishing (March 15th, 16th and 17th) on a fully restored 37′ Rybovich called the “Makaira” with Capt. Jason Bryce and mates Jeffrey and Wilson.
Conventional: 149 raised/143 bites/100 releases (all Pacific sailfish)
Fly: 8 raised/4 bites/2 releases (all Pacific sailfish)
Gavin hooked 43 of the 100 sailfish bites and caught this beautiful Pacific sail on the fly.
Today we hit a really cool milestone with our television show Hooked on OC as we filmed our 200th episode. Dave Messick and I started the show 10 years ago and it’s hard to believe that we’ve made it to our 200th episode. We had the privilege of fishing with Captain Jeff Coats of Pitboss Fishing and Ocean City fishing legend Big Bird Cropper, inventor of the Roy Rig.
Captain Jeff and his lovely mate Karen met Big Bird and I at Harborside Bar and Grill and we made our way to the route 50 bridge to catch the outgoing tide and try the rockfish. Captain Jeff reported 100% better weather than his trip yesterday. We used Big Bird’s Roy Rigs and caught four “schoolie” rockfish and missed a couple of other bites. The fishing wasn’t great, but we did have enough of a bite to make a show, the weather was beautiful and it was a great to spend some time on the water with some great new friends! The 200th episode, which Karen did an excellent job filming!, will air this Sunday at 7:30 on WMDT TV 47 and will be available on our YouTube channel later this week. YouTube.com/unscenepro Our day started at Harborside, so that’s where it ended….and Jeff and Karen enjoyed soft-shell tacos (my favorite) after a great day on the salt!
