Posted on December 19th, 2017
It’s been a long wait, but I am finally able to report on some rockfish that were caught off of Ocean City and just outside of Indian River Inlet. How long they will stick around is anyone’s guess, but it’s nice that they’ve shown up inside of the three mile limit. A lot of the fish seem to be in the slot of nonkeepability (I may have just made that up), but there are some fish that are landing in coolers. The Maryland regulations for rockfish are a size limit of 28″ to less than 38″ and over 44″. Anglers are permitted to keep two rockfish that fall in either of those size ranges, but are permitted to keep 0 fish between 38″ and 44″. The aforementioned “slot of nonkeepability”. And remember it doesn’t matter where you leave from or where you fish you must abide by regulations for the state to which you return or “land” your fish. Anyone returning to MD after fishing can keep two rockfish in the above size ranges.
My hunt club buddy Finn McCabe fished outside of Ocean City inlet today with Brian Lisiewski, Teresa Laskowski and Bob Light on board the Reel Delight and found some really nice fish…..too nice! The crew combined forces to catch 8 rockfish, but all were between 39″ and 43″ and had to be released. They did have a good time and got some great shots though!
Mike Snedaker, Juan Franzetti and Lucas Franzetti didn’t have the action that the Reel Delight had today, but they did land a good fish to bring home. The guys used mojos to catch one nice fish of 35″ displayed here by the very festive Lucas Franzetti.
Captain Chase Eberle fished outside of Indian River Inlet yesterday and had a good day with the rockfish and the tautog. Captain Chase put his crew on some keeper tautog in the morning (he’s fishing out of Delaware) and then put them on four nice keeper rockfish.
Big Bird Cropper was at it again today with his buddy Shawn Noel. Bird and Shawn through Roy Rigs again today and though they only had 10 rockfish releases they had another five red drum with two keeper fish of 26″ and 27″.
My young friend David Herbst couldn’t get on any of the striped bass today, but he did get on a couple of largemouth. David fished a local pond and caught some bass including this 23″ bruiser that was pushing 7 pounds.
