The private boat Slaughterhouse fishing out of Sunset Marina with Captain Mark Hess, mate Kenny Fusco and angler Pam Hess caught this HUGE 560 pound thresher shark today. Weighed at Sunset Marina.
Captain Jason Mumford of Lucky Break Charters had a good day in the bay today. This morning his anglers released seven striped bass with two fish being over the 31″ slot, and some throwback flounders. This afternoon it was back to some throwback flounders and some bluefish.
Anglers fishing on On the Run with Captain Dave Caffrey had a nice day with some sea bass and five keeper flounder from 18″ to 21″.
This young angler had a nice flounder fishing with Captain Chase Eberle of Chasin’ Tides Charters.
Carly, Adley and Eva had some fun catching some throwback flounder outside of the south jetty this afternoon.
If you are a ray, gar, hound fish, catfish or snakehead swimming around the Eastern Shore, you may want to relocate because Captain Marc Spagnola and his crews on Dusk to Dawn Bowfishing are after you.
Captain Monty Hawkins of the Morning Star had a late start, but he had a good day of fishing once he got out.
Oyyyy… Not a fun morning. Tried and tried to keep the engines running – wouldn’t. Acted as though they had no fuel. Finally figured out my keys were reversed.
Hmmm..
Might be more to this story than I can write at the moment.
Took two hours to figure out she’d run fine w/o keys in on position.
Odd turn of events. Been just fine 23 years. The keys never get removed. Ever. Just oil em a couple times a year.
Ain’t that strange.
Everyone had faith though and stuck around. We got underway at 8:40 – clients got $35 off the trip and I gave em their 8+ hours too.
We cleared the inlet into a gorgeous day offshore. The fellows got a bit excited at our block drop. Pushed over ahead of schedule; ehhh, landed pretty close I guess.
Sorta.
Cbass won’t mind a bit.
We ventured offshore from there.
Fishing was not unkind. Current was flying but 8oz sinkers were holding bottom on the drift – worked.
Sea bass the target and plentiful if not harvestable til fall or next year; we nicked a few fluke on the slide too.
By and by what breeze we had fell to nothing. Hot, calm & slightly deep make a bad combination for releasing sea bass. Oft times anglers will think ‘they all die’ when cbass drift off for a bit while belly up. Watch em a while and you’ll see they reduce their expanded air bladder gasses (through respiration I’m told) and they’ll go back down. I have watched tens of thousands descend.
I also have over 1000 tag returns from ALS, many of which are sea bass. None of those fish were ‘vented’ yet survived fine. In fact, while MD DNR and MAFMC were aboard to investigate unvented ‘recreational discard mortality’ we had a large male float 8 minutes before descending. A record that – normally 2 minutes is a pretty long float.
Though I was trying to show them smalls survive release better, it was windy every trip with the state & feds. No sea bass died.
Wavelets overwashing sea bass as they reacclimate their air bladder is the key. Even tiny waves in 6 knots of wind will work to keep them cool.
But without?
With no cooling overwash?
No animal can withstand a 30+ degree rise in body temp. If the sun is beating down on them with no way to cool? ..and if we do not release excess gas via a hollow needle into the air bladder area? Then they cannot reacclimatize fast enough to prevent overheating and perish.
So Tim and Joe vented.
Lots of venting.
Habitat fidelity demands it. They will return to the same reef for at least a few years.
The exact same reef.
But who?
One of my all-time favorite old time mates; Tim happened to be around when a new hire drove off in a huff yesterday.
“Hey Tim, mind filling in tomorrow?”
He hasn’t changed much, I’ll promise!
A good bit of it rubbed off on his son, Joey, too..
Everyone aboard did a lot of reeling. Not a terrible lot of keeping but certainly dinner around the rail.
Doc, who saved the day last week, won the pool.
One thing odd for sure – we had more fluke than I’ve seen in a good while.
Who could guess what the summer of 2025 will bring..
We’ve had some decent weather the past couple of days and even though it’s been chilly, there have still been some folks out catching some fish. Captain Chris Mizurak and the crew of the Angler had… READ MORE
Crab Pie Ingredients 1 Pound jumbo lump crab meat 2 Deep Dish Pie Crusts (this recipe will make 2 pies) 1/4 cup of diced onion (or shallots) 8 oz of Swiss cheese 2 Tablespoons flour 3… READ MORE
