Father's day Weekend - Ocean City MD Part 2

[Johnsfolly]

Took a while to get the time to report the rest of my father's day weekend. After getting off of the Ocean City Princess, I had lunch and headed to another dock to get on board the Tortuga to fish for flounder. Since we were going to be fishing the bay there was no long boat ride to get to the first fishing spot. I had high hopes of catching at least one flounder. On the boat in the morning we watched a guy in a duck boat drifting with the tide and fishing what looked like 1/4 oz jigs with white grub bodies. as he drifted he would catch a flounder or two. Then he would head back up current and make the drift again. we probably saw him catch 7 to 8 flounder before we left the dock. Now he fished the falling tide. so the current was pulling from the bay out to the ocean.

 

When we fished the bay the tide was coming in. Not the same conditions, but still convinced that there were plenty of flounder in the bay. We fished fish finder rigs with 3 oz weights and hooks with a silverside minnow and a strip of squid. We dropped the baits and drifted along dragging the baits below the boat. We fished in water that was between 6 and 20 feet deep. The hardest part of this was trying to determine a bite versus the sinker bouncing along the sandy bottom. On this trip there were lots of boats doing the same type of fishing that we were doing. Seemed like there wasn't big areas of structure to target, but areas along the channel of shoals that held fish on a daily basis, With the number of baits drifting along, fish were being caught on our boat and on the boats around us. My first fish just pounded the bait. Not doubt that this was a bite. Landed my first summer flounder, aka fluke, on a hook and line. I have gigged many in the past, but not caught one with a rod and reel. Took a fish face photo for BH. If you have caught this type of flounder you know that they have teeth. So I suffered just to get the shot. You can see that this is a "left sided" flounder where the right eye migrated to the left side of the fish.

The fishing was slow but consistent with someone on the boat getting bit with each drift. I caught and landed one more.

On the last drift over the deep channel I got a big hit and this fish pulled drag, Unfortunately the hook pulled and I did not land that fish. It fought like a flounder and may have been the biggest on the boat. So I missed wining the pool again. By 7:15 pm we were pulling into the dock. I had a 90 minute drive back to the hotel, but had a great father's day. Just wished that my family could have been on either or both of these trips. In fact Livie says that her mother is now her favorite since I fished without her.