Posted on July 5th, 2016
If you like shooting a bow, and you like fishing, then you would definitely like bowfishing. There are two boats in the Fish in OC fleet that offer bowfishing, the Ocean City Guide Service with Captain John Prather and Dusk to Dawn Bowfishing with Captain Marc Spagnola.
It takes quite a bit of skill to master bowfishing. The refraction of the water makes hitting your target more difficult, and throw in that your target may be moving and it takes skill of another level. Some people ask, “what do you do with the rays that you shoot?” The answer is….eat them. There are quite a few good recipes out there for the meat from southern, butterfly and cow nosed rays so these animals do not go to waste.
Captain John Prather offers bowfishing trips in addition to inshore charter trips for bluefish, rockfish, tautog and his specialty….flounder. Captain John has been putting bowfishermen on some really nice fish over the past few weeks including a nice 92 pound butterfly ray by a 10 year old shooter.
Captain Marc Spagnola on Dusk to Dawn Bowfishing is strictly bowfishing. Captain Marc has fished all over the area honing his craft and offers bowfishing trips day or night. Dusk to Dawn is perfectly rigged for bowfishing and is lit to put you on the fish at night. Captain Marc has been putting his shooters on some great fishing recently as well, including a nice 83 pound butterfly ray.
Bear down at the Oceanic Pier reports that fishing along the sea wall on the Ocean City side of the inlet has been really good the past few days. John from Baltimore caught two nice keeper rockfish on white zoom baits early this morning.
Brandon from Pennsylvania caught this 37″ rockfish on the wall behind the Oceanic Motel on one of the Oceanic Pier’s “Midnight Madness” finger mullet.
The sea wall has also produced some keeper tautog like this one captured off of a live sand flea.
John from Baltimore caught this 37″ keeper rockfish on a white zoom bait off of the sea wall as well.
I got a great submission from Nate Pritchett yesterday. Nate fished offshore this Sunday with his neighbor Milan Lipensky and had a gaffer mahi and he fished inshore on Monday. Though they didn’t have any keepers, he put Jackson and Charlie on their first ever throwback flounder. Nate credits a lesson from Captain John Prather of Ocean City Guide Service for their success.
