Posted on June 23rd, 2016
We have had some crazy weather the past couple of days and it continued into this morning. We had some pretty severe thunderstorms roll through Ocean City this morning that eventually made their way offshore to put a damper on the offshore fleet….literally. Seas were already pretty sporty, but when the thunderstorms arrived it took it to another level. I got one report of 50+ MPH winds and very high seas, and at least one boat broke an outrigger in it. Thankfully no one was injured that I know of and the fishing was actually really good for most. The storms left the Ocean City area around 11 AM this morning and it actually turned into a really nice afternoon when the wind subsided.
Kirk Reynolds and his crew battled the wind and rain today on board the Marli with Captain Mark Hoos and mate Mark Stephens and had an absolutely awesome day. The crew boxed two big gaffer mahi, 16 yellowfin tuna and four really nice bigeye tuna. Rain or shine that is one awesome day of fishing!!
The bays behind Ocean City were surprisingly clean today after all of the recent thunderstorm activity. Usually the runoff from storms will dirty the water badly and it takes a few days to clean up….that hasn’t been the case yet thankfully. Captain John Prather on the inshore charter boat Ocean City Guide Service took advantage of the clean water this afternoon and had a tremendous day of flounder fishing. Captain John put his crew on nine keeper flounder and several other throwbacks on just one afternoon trip.
The family and I took advantage of the better weather this afternoon and took the Fish in OC skiff out for a little flounder fishing action as well. We used Gulp swimming mullet and live minnows and though we didn’t have the success that Captain John did, my wife Kristen did catch a nice 19″ keeper on her new JPR custom rod.
I got a cool picture from Bear down at the Oceanic Pier reporting an unusual catch. Mark Faulhaber was using whole bunker for bait when he caught this 45 pound butterfly ray from the route 50 bridge. Mark also had something else take his whole bunker that made a bee line to the white buoy down from the bridge and never returned.
