Posted on June 8th, 2018
It was a really nice day in and around Ocean City until about 3 PM when the wind really started to puff out of the south. It was still fishable in the back bays and offshore fishermen reported it was really nice until they got about 20 or so miles from shore on the way back home. Bay anglers had some good luck with flounder and pretty much anyone that went tuna fishing came home with meat in the box.
The first report that I’ve gotten from the boys on the Reel Chaos was today and it was a doozie!! The crew of Reel Chaos out of Sunset Marina with Captain Anthony Matarese Sr. at the helm fished the Wilmington canyon where they absolutely murdered the tuna. Captain Anthony put his crew on three healthy yellowfin tuna and 12….yes 12 bigeye tuna. The larges to the bigeye were just north of 100 pounds. Congratulations to Captain Anthony and the crew of Reel Chaos on an absolutely insane day of tuna fishing.
The crew of the MARLI with Captain Mark Hoos had a pretty awesome day of tuna fishing themselves today. Captain Mark put Rob Coughlin and his crew on 12 bigeye tunas and a nice gaffer mahi. The total weight on the bigeyes was an incredible 1042 lbs.
Closer to shore along the offshore lumps the bluefin bite was also pretty incredible. Boats fishing for bluefin witnessed the tuna all over the surface and most boats caught their limit of “under” sized fish from 27″ to less than 47″. The All In with Captain Scott Stapleford caught a total of 14 bluefin tuna from 38″ to 44″ and one fat yellowfin tuna. The crew boxed their limit of three “under” bluefin and released the rest. Captain Scott said mate Dave Laux did a fantastic job in what must have been and insane cockpit.
The crew of the Spring Mix II out of the Ocean City Fishing Center was in on the bluefin action today as well. Captain Chris Watkowski put his crew on their three “under” bluefins and released another seven fish.
There was a pretty decent flounder bite in the back bay today before the wind blew if you could find some clean water. Captain John Prather of Ocean City Guide Service had the feature image with these five keepers Flounder until his Inlaws sent him the photo of Reel Chaos’s tuna above. Captain John used live minnows in the south bay to round these flatties up.
G from Fin City caught a couple of nice keepers while fishing on the Less Bills in the west channel. The fish were caught on live minnows on the outgoing tide and the biggest was 20″.
Captain Dave Caffrey of On the Run had a good day at the south jetty yesterday. Captain Dave and his crew used sand fleas to catch and release 10 tautog and 37 rockfish and also box this 19 1/2″ flounder.
I had a chance to do a little flounder fishing myself this afternoon with my good friend and Fish in OC contributor Dale Timmons and we had a great time once again. We only managed a couple of fish, but one of them was this nice 22″ fattie that ate a live minnow on one of Dale’s Deadly Double rigs in the east channel south of the route 50 bridge.
Bear down at the Oceanic Pier sent me a few more pics of Freddy and Jamie with a few more sharks from the surf and a stud of a sheepshead that Andrew Truitt caught on the sough jetty this afternoon. The big sheep ate a peeler and was 27″ and a whopping 15 pounds.
Captain Marc Spagnola of Dusk to Dawn Bowfishing has had some nice shooting for rays both day and night the past couple of trips. Captain Marc also took a fun fishing trip to the Choptank River where he landed himself a couple of healthy rockfish.
