Posted on August 29th, 2022
It was another nice day on the water today with light winds, sunny skies and warm temps and now that summer is winding down it wasn’t as crowded either.
There’s no denying that offshore fishing over the past several weeks has sucked. Billfish have been tough to come by and tuna have been even more scarce in some situations. There were plenty of fish caught during the offshore tournaments over the past couple of months, but you can ask anyone in the industry and they’ll tell you it’s been an off year. That’s why a few tuna showing up is a real good thing and there have also been some billfish in the report lately. Hopefully it gets even better as temps cool down.
Today Captain Joe Drosey of Rhonda’s Osprey found his crew some yellowfin tuna and they were good ones in the 50 to 60 pound class.
Captain Chris Watkowksi of the Spring Mix II found a nice yellowfin tuna and a bunch of mahi for his crew on today’s trip.
The crew on Reel Chaos with Captain Anthony Matarese had a great day with two white marlin releases, some tuna and some mahi.
Captain Chase Eberle of Chasin’ Tides Charters had a nice day on the ocean with some flounder for his crew.
Captain Wayne Blanks of Bayside Guide Service found the big bluefish at the route 50 bridge today with one fish at a big 36″.
Big Bird Cropper and Shaun Flaherty found the big blues at 50 today too. They caught them on Roy Rigs and “dredging” stretch lures.
David Burt fished the Eastern Shore of Virginia on Saturday and caught and released a tarpon. He got a super cool jump shot in the process!
Captain Marc Spagnola of Dusk to Dawn Bowfishing is back at it day and night and the rays and snakeheads are paying dearly for it.
These anglers lucked into some keeper flounder on board the Tortuga out of Bahia Marina.
Captain Monty Hawkins of the Morning Star had to go into overtime today, but he was able to put some fish on deck.
Threat of fog dissipated with sunrise; a couple clients had us waiting at the dock until almost 7. Nice day weatherwise though.
After my gal Courtney and friend to our reef building, Mark, dropped today’s reef blocks, we put some lines out and trolled offshore some more.
Saw a couple mahi and pitched baits at em.
Naw..
Went off and tried some more – Fish On!
A few lonely mahi it turns out.
Worked the sea bass. With schools to 40’ up off the bottom – Nick a handful.
What??
Lots&Lots&Lots of sea bass.
Can’t make em eat.
Back to mahi..
Bam!!
Had a nice shot of fish.
Their cousins & schoolmates? Eh, ain’t hungry!
A huge school of mahi followed hooked fish up – and a huge school went off to parts unknown.
Moving and see some mini-mahi jumping what seemed 10’ out of the water — others skittering across the surface.. Wahoo?
No joy on that school – maybe if I had one of those ultra fancy sonar rigs I could have worked em. Probably not. Whatever was chasing them had em spooked good.
Another shot of mahi – fewer.
Another single..
Tried sea bass on an ultra top secret spot. Not so much!
Catch one dandy and plenty of hope for the future in smalls..
Back to mahi – more spots, no more fish.
Lots of effort. Two hours overtime and thankful my anglers have a decent fish fry..
Tomorrow is a new day!
Only have half a boat, but I have a bad time planned for some fish!
See Morningstarfishing.com Fish Report if you’d like to book a trip.
Be opening more of Sept soon.
UW pics with this post are from one of very few men I trust to jump off my boat. Tim McD and friends dove the Queen Sunday in unreal conditions (visibility fabulous!) and sent me these snaps.
This is the dark & deep part – corals, even our “non reef building” unimportant corals that NOAA could give a “flying fickle finger of fate*” about – nearshore corals need sun..
(*google it – Rowan & Martin’s Laugh In. Taught cynicism anyway.)
Where corals won’t grow; mussels, however have no concern of sunlight and visibility. They can thrive anywhere there’s water flow.
We use crabs to catch tog, but I guarantee the largest part of their diet is mussels.
Anyway – I always enjoy getting a glimpse of our task ahead through these underwater images.
Right now we’re officially at this point: if “Rebuild our squirrels” were the task I bet someone would check to see if any forest were somehow missing. “Rebuild our fisheries”? Nawwww! Why worry about seafloor habitat! It’s all sand and mud anyway..
I promise – that’s a real & true sense of where we’re at in the mid Atlantic with temperate reef fisheries restorations.
Zero effort to learn.
All those wind surveys?
Nothing to see here – move along. Of course, we did exclude live bottoms from the permit area 10 or 12 years ago. That’s why the permits have those funny shapes.
Still? Ain’t no need to worry with what ain’t been found.
When the companies that operate stern towed fishing gears, esp clamming gear and factories, treat the WHOLE Council & Commission to fabulous all you can eat seafood feasts, unimaginable feasts! And when the owner of that giant company hires the then habitat king for Council to write the “fishery impact” paper (gooood munney too..) consider Sergeant Shultz from Hogan’s Heroes our look out on habitat.
“I knowwwww NUTHING!”
and we don’t.
Not a damn thing.
“Sand bottom is better than reef.” (I swear! That is a real paper that anti wind and pro stern towed gear people are in love with.)
“Sea bass eat crabs – period.” (Best scientific information available right there.. Nevermind sea bass suspend themselves 20/30/40 feet above a reef to feed on krill every day.)
And no history exists to steer future fisheries restorations efforts toward habitat rebuilding.
None.
Irritating.
Just the Bass Grounds area alone some eight and nine miles east of Ocean City lost over four square miles of coral-rich hardbottom habitat.
And if you listen, you can hear the same story told from Massachusetts to to Virginia – at least.
And I guarantee we are 100% on track for ANOTHER big cut in sea bass for 2023 — MRIP is already leaning toward “Overfishing!!”
Virginia is showing another (completely fabricated) May/June 2022 blow out sea bass catch. New Jersey too.
Maryland’s Party/Charter boats (officially) landed no (zero) sea bass in May/June 2022 ..while our Private Boats just hammered em.
We tell the feds what we caught after every trip. Every one!
Even with first count data in hand they cannot begin to fashion an accurate estimate.
MRIP needs to be led to the gallows. There’s nothing good about it.
Nothing.
Cheers
Monty
