Posted on November 29th, 2020
We had one more very nice day in and around Ocean City today before the weather turns to absolute poo. Light winds, warm temps and sunny skies greeted anglers today and the fishing was very good again for bay and ocean fishermen. Tomorrow is a total washout with lots of rain and wind that’s supposed to blow 20-40 mph with higher gusts possible. The rain clears out tomorrow night, but this front ushers in some cold temps and more wind for most of the week. We can’t complain though, November has been very fisher friendly.
Captain Chris Mizurak of the Angler invited me along for today’s trip, but unfortunately I couldn’t make it. I realize now that I should have tried harder as they smoked the sea bass and had some reely nice flounder. Captain Chris reported limits of sea bass around the rail today with some flounder mixed in up to 8.25 pounds. There were also a couple of other fish that were over 5 pounds.
Captain Monty Hawkins of the Morning Star enjoyed today’s weather and had some good fishing to finish up a nice stretch before this wind blows.
Great and glorious ocean this am; crystal clear skies and calm – nice way to finish off November.
Paddled on offshore a while, dropped blocks with the assistance of Megan Nichols of Berlin, and kept paddling.
Our first drop? Nice! Shades of yesterday. All I had to do was keep em coming this time.
Did.
It was especially heartwarming to see Miss Megan’s husband, Ray, do all he could to keep short sea bass away from her line: while he pulled double throwbacks, she pulled double keepers – easily taking today’s first limit at 10:42. (Not 100% certain this was Ray’s exact intent, but I’m doing the writing here.. He also caught a 5.5lb fluke and wasn’t worried about anyone’s sea bass after that!)
We quickly saw another limit and another – by 11 going off like popcorn and done at 11:50.
Yesterday I didn’t get back to the dock until 6:15 – well after dark. We’d caught our first limit around 3pm.
Today? In an hour early – a very welcome escape from yesterday’s maddening mess.
Wind’s going to blow all week looks like. Will try and get the good people at McLean’s yard in Baltimore to allow modification of our new reef barge. Don’t quite have funding for everything – close though. Close enough I can cover it myself if push comes to shove.
She’s a 200’ long “hopper barge” for carrying such as dredge spoils – will be our largest single deployment ever.
By cutting numerous holes in the gigantic hopper and sides, plus loading a dozen or so truckloads of concrete pipe, we can make this new reef one of the toggiest places on the planet.
After that? We’ll find something else to sink!
Cheers!
Monty
Captain Chase Eberle of Chasin’ Tides Charters was on double duty today putting his group on a limit of sea bass and a nice pile of tautog.
Big Bird Cropper and his buddy Shaun hit the inlet and bay again today to do some Roy Rigging and per usual they had a great day doing it. The guys released over 20 rockfish and Shaun landed this 29″ keeper on the north jetty.
