Fish Report 7/20/12

Fish Report 7/20/12

Cbass & Flounder

Summer Fishing

Thanks MCBP!

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Sunday Trip, 7/22/12 - Long 6 to 3:30 - $125.00 - Cbass/Flounder Mix..

Thursday, 7/26/12 - 12 Hour Cbass (Flounder Unlikely) - 4:30AM to 4:30PM - $150.00

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Sea Bass & Flounder Fishing 7 to 3 Everyday - Longer on Saturdays - Keeping Most Sundays Open In Summer For Research & Different Trips - Plenty Of Spots Open - Always Try To Leave Early & Stay Late - Reservations Required @ 410 520 2076 - We Obey Regulations Whether We Agree With Them Or Not - Bring Food & Beverage Plus A Cooler & Ice For Your Party's Fish* - Dramamine The Night Before Is Cheap Insurance - Be Early, We Like To Leave Early; Rarely In On Time..

*Cheap Styrofoam Coolers Rarely Survive A Day - A 48 QT Igloo Works Great

Hi All,

Mixed Results.

Since my last report we've had, hands down, the best sea bass trip this year and have had several excellent days of flounder fishing -- each successively the best this year.

Another day, however, many struggled.

It's fishing.

That last 12 hour trip was intense; A couple guys were limited by 11. It really was --In July-- the best sea bassing I've had in all of 2012.

The rest of the time has been far more normal: A pick of cbass & some flounder (summer flounder, aka "fluke" north of DE Bay). One day the cbass will be chewing, the next is a better flounder bite. I can neither predict nor control which species will bite better. We will have a variety of good baits to respond with & try like heck to send folks home with a fish fry.

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And that's the new normal for our summer fishing.

Used to be catching flounder on our wrecks and reefs was a rare occurrence. In the 1980s we'd occasionally diamond jig a few in October up to 12 pounds. Many years we didn't see a flounder at all. Now I spend a good piece of the year at least partly focused on 'em.

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Dramamine really is like insurance - Candied Ginger works for many folks too.

You can't crash your car and THEN go buy insurance..

Take one before bed--sleep well. Take 1/2 of one before leaving and another at 10 AM -- See? No one has pics of you on Facebook hanging over the rail..

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The concrete conquest continues, will become coraled-over in time: As of today we've sent exactly 1,200 reef blocks by the rail.

Jimmy's Reef, for instance, now has 72 three-block units on it - Its starting to look like reef on a depth sounder..

Allied Concrete's invention, these "Oyster Castles" have now been repurposed as Coral Castles. Interlocking, they work great for oyster restoration in high energy sites where waves are crashing - will work equally well for oysters in 60 feet of water

..or coral in 300 feet.

We stitch them together with heavy-duty wire ties to form reef units of 3 to 10 blocks & drop them on marginal artificial reefs in order to bolster production.

Its working.

Incredibly, fantastically, well at several spots.

Hopefully this week the OC Diver will film & begin construction at one of several spots where the Fin Chaser & Morning Star have sited over a hundred single blocks to be assembled underwater.

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Our first two pallets were donated by TNC to try as a boat deployable reef material -- reef material is generally cheap but barges & tugs are EXPENSIVE.

I immediately sought funding for a truckload - 16 more pallets. Capts Ted Green & Dan Stauffer stepped up as did the Ocean City Reef Foundation (OCRF) & Maryland Artificial Reef Initiative (MARI) - the rest we covered with our daily 50/50 Reef Raffle.

That load - 1,152 blocks - has gone overboard and a new truckload funded almost entirely by the Maryland Coastal Bays Program (and $1,000 in Reef Raffle) has arrived..

Its important to also note storage - The Ocean City Fishing Center is allowing us to store these many pallets of concrete block w/o charge. Nice to have them close-by every morning..

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From Teddy Roosevelt's 7th State of the Union, 1907 -- "To waste, to destroy our natural resources; to skin & exhaust the land instead of using it so as to increase its usefulness will result in undermining in the days of our children the very prosperity which we ought by right to hand down to them amplified & developed."

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I expect he still believed the sea was inexhaustible - everyone did.

Believe this, Developing Reef Habitat Amplifies Reef Fish Populations: Growing Coral Makes Fish.

I'm positive.

Regards,

Monty

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Capt. Monty Hawkins
mhawkins@siteone.net
Party Boat "Morning Star"
Reservation Line 410 520 2076
http://www.morningstarfishing.com/