Posted on December 8th, 2015
It was another good day of rockfishing for the 3rd Annual Ocean City Marlin Club Rockfish Tournament as several fish hit the dock at Atlantic Tackle this afternoon. Captain Wes Pollitt, Josh Farr and Adam Glushakow, fishing on the Temptress, weighed three rockfish this afternoon. The largest was a nice 32.4 pounder that is currently in second place. Here’s how the leaderboard looks after four days of fishing.
Temptress
Hell Bent (G-Force)
When Captain Wes isn’t catching big a$$ rockfish, he mates on the Morning Star with Captain Monty Hawkins and helps the Ocean City Reef Foundation build some awesome bottom. He and Nick Denny were out yesterday and I received this report from him.
The Ocean City Reef Foundation has been making a huge push this year to add to the existing reefs off Ocean City as well as create a few new ones. As many are aware, they have the 100’ Iron Lady tied up in West Ocean City and have been making a big push this fall to get as much concrete as possible on the bottom. The Reef Foundation also has a small barge they use for reef building. While it cannot haul as much as the Iron Lady, it is owned and operated by the Reef Foundation so it can make many more small trips and add to some great fishing spots.
Today, the Reef Foundation barge took two loads of precast concrete out about 2 miles from the Ocean City Inlet. Once on location they have a mooring set up which they tie off to and let the barge settle into. Once stationary, they begin dumping the pipes off. All in all, some really great reef was added to today and should make for some really nice fishing in a few years.
Capt. Wes Pollitt and Nick Denny went out to observe the reef deployment and take some pictures and decided while they were at it, to do a bit of research while they were out. They went an anchored up on a nearby artificial reef and tried their hand at some Tautog fishing to see how the tog were taking to their new home. It didn’t take long for them to figure out that artificial reef really has its benefits. They were immediately rewarded with some very nice fish weighing up to about 10lbs. Being tog season is closed in Maryland until the first of the year, all the fish were immediately released, unharmed.
And Nick Denny is mad at fishing too! He was on the route 50 bridge tonight and caught and released three rockfish up to about 20″. He did report hooking a “big” one, but it got under the bridge and broke him off.
That means that there are still fish in the bay which is a good sign for fishing the next few weeks.
