Good action today – Ocean City MD Fishing

By Scott Lenox

Published on June 18, 2024

Check out the Daily Catch video at Sunset Marina!!

We could certainly use a little rain right now, but boy did we have glorious weather! We had more of it today and even more good fishing trips with bent rods and smiling faces.

Congratulations to Boss Hogg’s crew for catching and releasing the first blue marlin for the Ocean City Marlin Club. Boss Hogg will receive $2,500 for the first blue.

This group had a fantastic day trolling with Captain Chris Watkowski of the Spring Mix II. They were able to bag five yellowfin tuna for the fish cleaners at the Ocean City Fishing Center.

Captain Chris Mizurak of the Angler reported steady bites and lots of action on the bass today, including a few flounder. I had to clean out the short fish, but it was worth it.

Anglers fishing with Captain Jason Mumford on Lucky Break Charters had fun today, bringing a nice 20-inch brown trout into the boat and a flounder to keep as a fish for the afternoon.

These guys fished with Captain Dave Caffrey of On the Run Charters and had luck with flounder, sea bass, Spanish mackerel and bonito.

Captain Chase Eberle of Chasin’ Tides Charters has had great success nearshore and offshore with striped bass from the OC Inlet and bonito, ribbonfish and Spanish mackerel from the Ocean Lumps.

Bryan Mindte of Sunset Provisions and his brother-in-law Gary Finch had some fun “digging” off the Route 50 bridge where they caught some very nice striped bass.

Captain Monty Hawkins of the Morning Star had a great day on the current today with good fishing and some sightseeing.

As we left the bay this morning, we noticed that yesterday’s wind had caused a slight swell from the south. What else?

Beautiful. (today I will post many marine mammals separately…)

The wind didn’t seem to mind that Hurricane Murray was on board – instead of a storm, we had a light summer southerly breeze all day.

But the fish definitely did it!

In the early hours of the morning, it was a real vicious cycle to get sea bass bites. On my screens there were loads of them – big! – and yet hardly a bite. As the day went on we got bites all around the railing, except for one spot.

But it was OK. Hurricane expects moments like this.

James and his daughter Kate were holding a symposium on bass jigging on the bow – I mean, they really did it. I had advanced my anchor nearly three times as far as my boat, but Hurricane (just 20 feet away) still couldn’t smell him.

Hurricane has thrown in the towel and started fishing for flounder – now daughter Kate calls out “Net!” without a hint of malice and gets herself a beautiful flounder.

Of course, that wasn’t the case with the hurricane.

I’m not making this up. When our very own portly prince of merriment and bringer of 6 pounds of sugar in the form of baked goods finds his luck taking a turn for the worse? It almost always stays in the skunk zone until 1 p.m.

Today too? Yep, he caught his first keeper.

In the meantime, James and Kate will invite the extended family to a fish dinner…

What can you do, it’s fishing.

Aside from the hurricane’s bad luck, we saw other signs of ocean health today – fabulous.

We caught more redfish than I have seen in ten years or more. That’s not to say it was an old-fashioned ling catch; but it was nice to have a few on the rail.

And after a while of rarely seeing a saddleback dolphin and no whales, today we saw quite a few. Half a dozen times saddleback dolphins flew toward us to ride the bow wave; also a pod of spotted dolphins. Several times we also saw five or more whales gushing water in the distance. All of those we got close enough to identify were fin whales. However, Mate Vic saw a full leap in the distance – a whale jumping three-quarters out of the water is unmistakable. Since I have never seen or heard of a fin whale leaping, it was almost certainly a humpback whale.

One of the fin whales we saw up close was a true giant. Makes my 55-foot party boat feel small? That’s a big whale – probably 75 feet or a little more, I thought. What an impressive animal.

James, who has been fishing with me for over 30 years now, couldn’t remember a time when everyone was jealous of his good fortune – they certainly are now. Took the pool with me too.

Tomorrow we’ll try again..

Bottom up,

Monty

Had a great time on the Bay Bee with some of the Worcester Prep Class of 2025! Got some flounder in the box too! Check it out!