Posted on August 30th, 2022
It was another flat, calm beautiful day on the ocean today and definitely a great day to be out there. I was on the Angler with Captain Chris Mizurak and crew and even though my streak of party boat fish pool wins came to an end I still had a great time.
Got word from West Ocean City that the marlin fishing in the offshore canyons was on fire today. I got a couple of pics from Captain Monty Hawkins and Dave Messick showing just that. Billfisher went 12 for 15 bites, Sandbob had a blue marlin and 8 white marlin and several other boats caught and released multiple billfish. The water seems to be getting a little closer too which is great news for marlin fishermen.
I love it when a kid gets to catch their first white marlin and I love it even more when their grandfather is super proud of them. Glad to oblige a mention in the fishing report for this awesome accomplishment. From Richard Stark……
Captain Monty Hawkins of the Morning Star had a nice day on the flat calm ocean today with sea bass, a couple of flounder and some mahi madness.
Marina parking lot near empty, my rail was pretty light too. With a handful of long time regulars and a few new folks too, we departed into a blaze orange sunrise. Daylight found glass calm seas that would remain so into afternoon. What a stunning day to be out.
Fishing began with a wild mini-mahi bite that would be repeated a fair number of times. Indeed, Sea Bass Bob took what is only our second limit of mahi this season. Everyone got into em. No big ones, but nice fishing. Best this season, for sure.
Sea bass were of no particular mind to feed – at least not on what we’re using for lures and baits. We’d find a few keepers most everywhere though. When the current and wind changed late in the afternoon, the cbass bite improved nicely. Just a few shy his limit, Sea Bass Bob nudged all others aside for high hook & then barely beat Holly out of the sea bass pool too.
Flounder bit all day, but not in number for us. Letty found the right one though – a nice one. (Believe I’ll have flounder for dinner myself.) She even beat the best mahi by a fraction to take the mahi/flounder pool we run on these XXLong trips.
Everyone was plenty busy this day; a wonderful mixed bag.
The Gulf States tried to do an end-run around NOAA with the Modern Fish Act. I had such high hopes for it.
The law mandated a new survey that found 3X more red snapper living on reefs than had been thought..
The fishery is far and away artificial reef and oil wells (..which make great reef if they don’t spring a mega leak!) – but NOAA claims nearly all of the snapper for their computers.
I’m looking at sea bass landings in the Mid and N Atlantic and asking professional skippers from those states what they think of the catch estimates – so far, it’s unanimous that MRIP hasn’t fixed a dang thing.
Nothing.
More and more and more completely bogus numbers. And I will prove it.
Here’s the article.
https://www.theadvocate.com/acadiana/sports/article_fe4e80c6-1a80-11ed-b7b4-87f99a489e58.amp.html
Cheers
Monty
