Big Mahi, Some Tuna and Some Big Golden Tilefish

By Scott Lenox

Posted on May 18th, 2026

I had the pleasure of fishing on board OC Guide Service today with new owner Captain Kyle Pelino and my buddy Chef Mikey Johnston of the OC Marlin Club for a new episode of Hooked on OC and it was a great time. We boxed over 30 sea bass up to about 17″ fishing the DelJersey reef and were home before 2:30. Should make for a great new episode of the show.

Trevor Hardman and the crew of the private boat Reely Workin’ had a nice day in the Washington Canyon putting a couple of yellowfin tuna in the boat along with eight mahi. One of the mahi was a stud!

Captain Dale Lisi of the Foolish Pleasures didn’t find any tunas on today’s trip, but he did put his anglers on some nice tilefish and mahi. The largest golden tilefish went 32.8 pounds.

Captain Jason Mumford of Lucky Break Charters had some good fishing for his anglers putting them on a big bluefish and several keeper sized flounder on both trips.

Captain Marc Spagnola of Dusk to Dawn Bowfishing was glad to be back on the water for some day and night action for his shooters. The rays, snakehead and catfish were not happy about it.

Anglers fishing on the Angler with Captain Chris Mizurak had to weed through the shorts today, but by the end of the day they had a very nice catch of sea bass.

Captain Monty Hawkins of the Morning Star was catching fish and building reef once again on today’s trip

Sea Bass & a new reef – 5/18/26

Just as well to have had a light rail today. Promising to add the 35 minutes I spent on putting out a reef mooring to the end of the day, we pressed on. (in at 4:45 instead of 3.)

Such history my first stop had. An old clammer that had become a money funnel was simply towed off and sunk back in the 1970s. That’s how the commercial guys used to do it.

I found it in the early 1990s with an old-school technique too. Saw two loggerhead sea turtles and slowed down for a look. The Mid-Atlantic’s reef ecology isn’t just for fishermen and divers. Even bottlenose dolphin feed over our reefs – at night(!) using echolocation.

Ah well.. Before the “iPhone with GPS” era, that was an amazing reef. Wasn’t too bad today – a good start.

Kicked around all day. Drifting, anchoring – nothing was ‘the solution’. We caught some truly fine examples though. Capt Chris was high hook with 9 (low man had 7 so pretty equal around the rail). Hurricane Murray his dern self pocketed both the pool and reef raffle money.

Nice.

Cheers,

Monty

Les Schott and his crew fished the Thorofare where they found keeper flounder from 16.5” to 17.5” on Deadly Doubles with Gulp.