Pacemaker Fishing Forum

Got an invite to spend Labor Day weekend in Ocean City with my friend Kevin. He wanted to hit some headboats and that sounded like a great idea to me. This would be my first saltwater trip since May.

9/1

Saturday we fished on the Morning Star. It was a long but pretty smooth ride out to the fishing grounds. About 90 minutes out we stopped so the crew could drop down some new artificial reef structure.



I thought we would be drifting, but the current was a little much, so we spent the day anchoring and re-anchoring over some sticky bottom looking for flounder and sea bass. Action was steady from the start, we got on some keeper flatties right away in addition to some throwbacks and sea bass just shy of the minimum. Kevin jigged with a 4oz fluke ball all day, and I switched off between a standard bottom rig and a 7" Gulp Jerk Shad on a 3oz head.

The crew put out some trolling lines with cedar plugs while we were moving to different spots and that turned out to be productive. The first hook up was within 15 minutes, and they gave Kevin the belt to fight that one. Turned out to be a false albacore.





We had our MD flounder limits by about 1pm and kept fishing, giving the rest of our legal fish to other passengers who were a little down on their luck. I think in total we caught 10 keeper flounder to 21" and just 1 keeper sea bass. Seemed like almost every sea bass I caught was 1/2" short.

The boat did a couple more trolling runs and hooked up 2 more false albacore during the day. A Korean gentleman took them home, he said they aren't good when cooked but they make excellent sashimi. Wish I knew how to prepare it.

The pool winner was a flounder of about 24", not sure who caught it but it wasn't me. Overall it was a good trip, with just one major negative...the flies. From about 11am and for the rest of the day, the flies were swarming like crazy. They attacked our legs relentlessly as we tried to fish, it was absolutely brutal. I'd have paid $100 for a pair of long pants.



9/2

Sunday we jumped on the Thelma Dale out of Fisherman's Wharf. As expected, the boat was pretty full. What I didn't expect was to see so much money in the rod holders, there were $800+ combos all over the place. Definitely more "sharpies" on board than I've ever seen.

The original plan was to drift for flounder over ocean structure, but after Captain Rick got an idea of the water conditions, he changed the plan a bit. We were going to anchor up over some sticky bottom in 120 feet of water. Almost like Fall wreck fishing.

After a long ride out, we got anchored up and the action started right away. The first stop was mostly flounder with a sea bass here or there. I'd say 75% of the flounder coming up were keepers. Kevin fished with 4-6oz fluke balls, while once again I switched between the standard bottom rig and a 7" Jerk Shad on a jighead. It takes a good while for a 3oz head to hit the bottom in 120 feet of current, but it worked.

We didn't move much during the day, but every spot we hit held fish. Sometimes it was mostly flounder, then it would be ling, then it would be sea bass. Almost everything coming up was a keeper. We had sea bass to 17" but saw at least one that was 4lbs or better. The ling especially were really good sized. I only landed one, but Kevin picked up 4, three of which were over 20". He really put on a show with that fluke ball all day.





There were a few surprises during the day. Kevin landed a Sea Raven, which was pretty cool (see above). A lady near me in the bow landed a 2lb lobster, which made everyone jealous. But I got lucky too...an 8lb cod hit my jerk shad and ended up winning me the pool . I was sure it was a skate as I was bringing it up.



It was a really great day of fishing, and to our extreme relief there wasn't a single fly on board all day. My only gripe was that our cooler was too heavy :-P . We finished with 10 keeper sea bass, 5 ling, 3 keeper flounder to 21", and the cod.



It was a great weekend. I wish I could do this more often.