It breezed up some this afternoon, but until then it was beautiful and there were plenty of folks out on the water including some offshore charter boats that got out on the yellowfin tuna and mahi.
Captain Mike Burt, Captain Pop Tart and “Capt. Fin” put their anglers on a terrific first trip of the season when they landed 13 yellowfin tuna and released two more.
The crew fishing on board Boss Hogg with Captain Alex Beane had a great day in the canyon today with seven nice yellowfin tuna and three mahi.
Rich Daiker and crew headed to the inshore lumps today and brought back this nice thresher shark to the scale at Bahia Marina.
Captain Jason Mumford of Lucky Break Charters found four keeper flounder for his party this morning.
Jesse Harman found this keeper flounder last night while throwing a Roy Rig at the Route 50 bridge.
Dave, Dave and Rich from PA found a boat limit of keeper flounder in the southern bay on Gulp.
Captain Chris Mizurak of the Angler reported good fishing for sea bass today along with some nice flounder for some.
Captain Monty Hawkins of the Morning Star had a nice day on the rip for his anglers
Better feeshin, bites-wise at least!
Spots open Sunday 5/31/26..
Departed into a fresh northwest wind with just little nip in it.
On our way off we soon saw a three master heading into the wind. Likely the Uruguayan Navy’s Capitán Miranda; unfortunately, in this day and age, that meant not under sail. Still not a common sight though.
Bryce & Brian deployed 24 Blocks at a new site. Saw fish there for the first time too – nice. Start with sand – turn it into reef habitat.
Watched Capt Trader aboard the Miss Valerie towing the west side of a shoal for fluke/summer flounder. I hadn’t seen a trawler working there, anywhere off here really, in 15 years or more it seems. Individual Fishery Quotas are allowed to be sold and bartered. I suspect a large portion of the MD coast quota for fish is sold annually to N Jersey/NY firms. Of what quota they keep, trawl effort here seems to peak around Thanksgiving when the price is best.
Now, I write about ‘stern towed gear’ damage to seafloor reef habitat a lot. But that’s from what you might call the ‘early industrial fishing era.’ There are very thick books about it – what happened 50 to 70 years ago in the Western Mid-Atlantic and even centuries ago around Europe is, to my way of thinking, a major reason why fisheries restorations have been difficult.
Today Capt. Trader was using his flounder quota to tow a trawl across sand. In a 2+ hour tow it is supremely unlikely he’ll come across any whip coral – any kind of hardbottom reef at all really.
It’s sand.
Can extensive hydraulic dredging alter sand habitat?
Probably. Sand eel habitat sure doesn’t seem hold a sand eel population after a season of hydraulic clam dredging. So far as I know, however, we have not investigated it.
I doubt a trawl would have the same effect without daily effort from multiple boats.
What happened at the Bass Grounds in the 1970s was just a shame. Four and a half square miles of patchy ancient marsh peat (hard enough to grow coral but easily broken by hand) were lost along with all their fisheries productions. Lots of rec and com trap boats fished the Bass Grounds into the 70s – and then they couldn’t.
I aim to put quite a bit back.
The bite was off the chain at times today. Lot of throwbacks though. A few fellows crossed into double digits with Bryce employing his reef builder’s karma go DD and pocket the pool.
We’ve lost tomorrow to N winds. I offered my Saturday reservations a Sunday trip instead. While some took us up on it, there are spots open. Looks a decent day for cbassing.
$693,000 Up For Grabs in the 2026 HUK Big Fish Classic
Just got home from some dinner after our final pre registration for the Flounder Royale and am happy to report we are off to an awesome start. As of tonight, we’ve got 24 boats registered with… READ MORE
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