Posted on May 16th, 2017
It was an absolutely beautiful day in Ocean City today! Sunny skies, temperatures in the 70s and flat calm seas….I’m talking flat calm!
Photo by Pitboss Fishing
There were some boats out in the deep and there were a few yellowfin caught and a couple of mahi, but the first white marlin of the season is still swimming around with his $15,000.
The news of the day was the first fishable day since sea bass season opened yesterday. It was well worth the wait too as the local party boat fleet was all over them first thing this morning. Captain Monty Hawkins on the Morning Star out of the Ocean City Fishing Center had an awesome start to the sea bass season with a couple of tautog and a boat limit of sea bass. That’s 15 fish per person and back to the dock early. “Cheers!”
Captain Chris Mizurak and crew had the Angler out of the Talbot Street Pier out for the first trip of the season and had an awesome day. Captain Chris reported several 15 fish limits with fish up to almost three pounds.
Captain Jeff Coats of Pitboss Fishing and his fiancé Karen took the Bad Influence out to the Jackspot in search of sharks and enjoyed the slick calm conditions as well. Captain Jeff and Karen didn’t manage any sharks, but did catch some spiny dogfish and some sea bass.
Nick Denny had his kayak out on the bay this morning and caught three big bluefish and three flounder with one keeper at 18 1/2″. Everything was caught on bucktails tipped with Gulp.
I couldn’t pass up the beautiful weather today either so after I finished my Dispatch column I headed out to the bay for a few hours with a friend. We fished the Thorofare with live minnows and Gulp baits and caught 5 flounder with one keeper. I broke my new JPR custom rod in with style when I landed the first fish of the day which was this 18.5″ keeper.
Ed, Jeff, Dan, Robert Gabriel and Steve Smith of the Redemption out of Ocean Pines with Captain Joe Jordan had a good day out in the deep today. The crew of Redemption fished the Norfolk Canyon where they found an 11 degree temperature break and water as warm as 73 degrees where they went one for three on yellowfin tuna bites and also boxed 7 mahi.
With the beautiful weather there were some folks out fishing the Oceanic Pier in downtown Ocean City today. Bear reported that although they’ve gotten smaller there were some more bluefish caught.
William from Newport News, VA had a great time at the pier with his wife today.
John stopped into the pier for a shot of two keeper rockfish that he caught on jig heads tipped with white Zoom baits.
John Wittmyer of Crabs to Go and Big Bird Cropper used Big Bird’s Roy Rigs to catch a bunch of fish today. The boys combined forces to catch 20 bluefish and over 30 small rockfish from the inlet to the ocean fishing pier.
Michael Durrant was also using Roy Rigs today and had a good day trolling them behind Assateague. Michael caught 25 bluefish in the 20″ range trolling Roys down by the duck blinds.
