Posted on October 5th, 2020
Check out the latest episode of Hooked on OC where I talk Fish in OC rigs in the Atlantic Tackle “Angler’s Advantage.”
It was a nice fall day on land today with sunny skies and warm temps, but there was something in the air that made me think it was rough out in the ocean. Just a little breeze off the ocean where I was seemed to be much more off the beach, but it didn’t stop a couple of boats from banging on some sea bass.
I was delivering rigs up in Delaware this afternoon when I got this photo of an absolutely gigantic flounder that was caught over the weekend. Amanda at Lewes Harbour Marina sent me this photo of Paul Elwood who caught the biggest flounder out of Delaware or Maryland this season and the biggest flounder I’ve seen caught in the area in quite a long time while fishing on board the Katydid. The big fish was 31″ long, had a 30″ girth and weighed in at a whopping 12.69 pounds! Sounds like it was caught on a Gulp 6″ grub over ocean structure. Congratulations to Paul on his probably once-in-a-lifetime fish!
Captain Monty Hawkins of the Morning Star found rougher than hoped for seas out in the ocean today, but it was doable and fish certainly hit the deck.
Shades of pain I’d created myself recently; we waited ..and waited.. for my last client this morning. Arriving just in time, the boys threw her lines off at 7:01 — we soon found ourselves in calm seas with a splendid sunrise.
Forecast? “Ha Ha!” I thought, “Small craft advisory my foot!“ Got offshore about 10 miles, however, and into an entirely different body of water it seemed.
Dogone weatherman was right.. I still haven’t figured out how you can have a sloppy NE swell that doesn’t roll all the way to the beach. Sure saw it this morning—beautiful inshore, sloppier & sloppier offshore but with waves headed for shore..
Dropped our tog penthouse blocks—super blocks I’ll call em—atop a flat top barge, then wandered off to find some sea bass.
Although I’d sought a boat deployable reef unit almost as soon as I began sea bass fishing in 1980, it was the obvious potential of barges – some quite large & already sunk as artificial reef – that really drove the quest.
A large expanse of flat steel just doesn’t offer a suitable substrate for marine growth. Unending swell, especially deep bodied storm-driven swell, and ceaseless currents don’t allow even mussels to gain a solid holdfast before they’re swept away.
Break those forces with just a bit of 3dimensional substrate, however, and life explodes—once a toehold is gained, growth is relentless.
Will soon try some pyramids on a few barges. Out to work. Haven’t seen any pyramids break apart yet dropping on sand. But steel? Hmm.. I expect we’d better lower them by rope to set them both upright & unbroken.
Time comes, we’ll try it.
For the third day in a row sea bass sent me into overtime to put together some limits. Saw huge schools suspended high in the water column this morning that just weren’t that hungry. A few of us tried jigging too – no joy.
And, as we saw the last couple trips, by early afternoon they were ready to chew.
Rob Purnell of Delmar DE boxed the first limit; half today’s clients followed suit.
Roy Soukas of Hebron MD took everyone’s pool money with the second fattest cbass.
We also had a handful of nice triggers.
Don’t mind staying late so long as the effort is worthwhile. Sure was today.
Cheers
Monty
The crew of the Ocean City Girl out of the Talbot Street Pier with Captain Jeff Stewart braved the wind and seas today as well and ended up with some bonita and over 100 keeper sea bass.
Captain Drew Zerbe of the Tortuga found this keeper flounder on this afternoon’s trip out of Bahia Marina.
Chrissie used a live sand flea at the route 50 bridge to land this 16 1/2″ keeper tautog.
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