More Inshore Mahi and Some Good Flounder From the Bay

Posted on August 13th, 2024

It was another beautiful day in and around Ocean City with sunny skies, light winds and very nice August temperatures.  There were lots of folks out fishing and there should be more with great weather coming for the next few days.

Captain Dave Caffrey of On the Run Charters had a nice day for his groups putting them on some very nice flounder on live bait.

Captain Will of Local Hooker Charters had a great day in the ocean with some solid mahi and a couple of big triggerfish.

Anglers fishing with Captain Chase Eberle of Chasin’ Tides Charters had some fun at the route 50 bridge with flounder and bluefish.

Captain Chris Mizurak of the Angler reported beautiful conditions and decent fishing with sea bass and flounder going in coolers.

Folks had a great time on the Judith M fishing out of Bahia Marina catching a bunch of sea bass on both of their 5 hour trips.

Captain Monty Hawkins of the Morning Star had a nice “day off” today with sea bass, mahi and the greatest marine mammal show he’s ever seen.

Flags lay tightly bound to their staff; starlight reflected off the sea’s smooth surface. It was 2:30am Tuesday, August 13, 2024. We were headed for Baltimore Canyon to, hopefully, catch a few friends & crew a mix of tilefish on busman’s holiday..

By sunup we had NE winds in excess of twelve knots–a bit whitecappy. Those winds were right where I anticipated the current to be today as well.

Joey & Conner had all manner of trolling gear out; got bit a few times too. False albacore make great tile bait.

Further off still I tried some commercial lobster gear polyballs for mahi. There we discovered supremely well educated peanut dolphin – they wouldn’t touch even flourocarbon leaders. We could also see the current ripping beneath the balls–wind and current together as I’d anticipated.

Uh Oh.

Now drifting nowhere near the depths I’d wanted to fish goldens and blueline tile in; I had Connor try an unbaited rig with 16 ounces.

He couldn’t stay on bottom.

UhOh indeed..

Anticipating in excess of 3lbs to hold bottom in the deep–& what brutal work handcranking that; I headed back where we’d seen fantastic signs of life earlier.

Trolling back inshore Vic was scanning with binolulars aside the starboard wheelhouse window for life when he said, “Huge spout! Another!”

We were about to see the greatest assemblage of marine mammals I’d ever beheld..

Trolling closer, Vic dispensed with the 8x50s. Everyone aboard saw whales and saddleback dolphin in any direction off the bow; soon all arounds us. Pods of 15 or more dolphin were constantly shooting in to ride the bow wake – even our tiny trolling stern wake as well. All around were hundreds more, in the distance hundreds and hundreds more.

And on the bottom?

Looked like sand eels on my sounders to me. Lots and lots and lots of em.

A false albacore spit up a huge sand eel. The shape vindicated our favorite sea bass jig in fine style, but I didn’t see pink, chartruese or glow colors in the real one.

Vic and I estimated a dozen humpbacks and nine fin whales. Common dolphin (saddleback or two-tone) were impossible to guess accurately – a thousand and more I’d think.

It was, by far, both the most whales and most common dolphin I’ve ever seen.

During this massive NatGeo moment we were also bitten off twice by..? Wahoo?

And, as ever, the (not at all real) old saying, “Unlucky at tuna, lucky at reef fishing” held sway.

No tuna.

No tiles.

We sure caught some nice sea bass though; nice mess of peanut/bailer mahi too.

Saw some mola-mola, a leatherback & a loggerhead too.

Ocean’s a great place to spend a day off..

Cheers,

Monty

Had a bunch of fun in the OP Flounder Tournament….Check it out!!