Posted on December 8th, 2018
As local water temps cool into the 40s tautog are leaving the bay, larger sea bass are heading further and further off the beach and I become more afraid that we are not going to have a rockfish bite to speak of this year. Don’t get me wrong, there are fish being caught off of NJ and VA, and there are fish migrating by us on a pretty regular basis. Problem is that damned EEZ keeps us from keeping rock outside of three miles. I bet they are stacked up at the 2nd lump out to 10 miles, but we haven’t had conditions that will bring them inside three miles for us yet….and I don’t know that we will before its too late.
The local party boat fleet is feeling the pressure of colder waters, but they are still having some luck and making it worth the effort.
Hi Scott, Weatherman didn’t do such a bad job today. Good thing too because we were way off the beach. Catching was outstanding — catching keepers, however, was another story. There were times today my sounders were darkened with fish but, apparently, larger sea bass are really moving offshore now with smalls bringing up the rear..
All was not lost though! Had a few guys in double digits and one client limited out, David Confair of Secretary MD. He also won the pool with his 16.5 inch sea bass. Same fellow also had a 17.5 inch sea bass ..but the pool is by weight – since the smaller cbass more closely resembled an aging party boat skipper in girth, it won the money!
Also pictured is George Bell of Millersville, MD with a nice (for these parts) scup.
Dae Kim of Fairfax, VA – Steve Hawk of Carney, MD – and Russell Drake of Owings Mills, MD round out the snap.
Captain Chris Mizurak of the Angler reported a “million” shorts also, but he also reported some keeper sea bass and one nice scup (porgy) for Ken.
