Fish Report 12/9/20
Clients (but not the Captain) arriving late will see the west end of an east-bound boat.
With a limited number of reserved spots, I do not refund because you
overslept or had a flat. No Refund or Reschedule for a missed trip!
Catching Sea Bass! (Had a boat limit four of my last five trips - about 30% limited on the worst trip lately. MD limit is 15 cbass at 12.5 inches..
Far Below: Reef Report 12/8/20
Volunteer Reef Labor Wanted 12/10/20 Thursday/Tomorrow (see reef report below)
Sea Bass Trips are 7 to 3:30 at $150.00 & Sell Out at just 15 for extra covid protection. Masks required in salon!(and not at the rail.) (We'll try to leave up to 1/2 hour early. And, yes, I rarely get in on time unless the fishing's just been outrageously good. Had two trips lately when we got back after six. Ouch! But got the job done with the catching..)
As many are already aware, my old reservation line of 18 years is no more. Have a new system. You may recognize Anna's voice as she builds her new answering service company. It's From Eight AM to Eight PM 100% Live Answer (except when life necessitates letting the message system have the helm awhile) and she'll not pick up before or after eight! Reservation Line: 443-235-5577
If you have a reschedule on the book you're welcome to reserve any spot that's open on any day with a similarly priced trip.
IF YOU BOOK A SPOT LEAVE YOUR BEST POSSIBLE CONTACT NUMBER & LISTEN TO YOUR MESSAGES -
Weather Cancellations Happen - I Make Every Attempt To Let Clients Sleep In If The Weather's Not Going Our Way..
Weather Cancellations Happen - I Make Every Attempt To Let Clients Sleep In If The Weather's Not Going Our Way..
Going Sea Bassing! Friday/Saturday/Sunday Dec 11/12/13
And Wednesday, Dec 16..
Sea Bass Trips are 7 to 3:30 at $150.00 & Sell Out at just 15
If in the passenger salon - Mask Required. If you refuse a mask, BYO life jacket! (but seriously, not only do I not want anyone taking ill -- if one Partyboat anywhere sparks an outbreak we'll ALL get shut down again. With many states at new highs, it's anyone's guess.. Regardless DelMarVa's less dramatic increase in corona, we must remain vigilant.)
Interestingly, for the first time in a long time I have need of reminding some clients: If You Won't Measure & Count Your Fish, The State Will Provide A Man With A Gun To Do It For You. We Measure & Count — ALWAYS — No Exceptions!
If accustomed to ignoring regulations - find another boat!
Boat Now Sells Out At 15! (used to be 25 before Covid, then 18, now reduced further in winter for client and crew safety) See new spots chart at morningstarfishing.com .. Everyone liked a smaller crowd as COVID regs hit - including me. It's going to stay that way even after Covid's long gone.
NEW Reservation Line 443-235-5577 from 8am to 8pm — No More 24 hour answers.. (emailing me about reservation availability does no good. Anna will have real time info. Worse is FB messenger. I only check it once a week or so. Want Reservation info? Want to know if your favorite spot is available? Call Anna! Sometimes you'll get a very sharp Daughter, Hanna..)
Am posting somewhat detailed day by day reports on Facebook...but I Do Not have FB messenger on my phone. If you want to book a spot - call. Need info from me? Email mhawkins@morningstarfishing.com- I make a sincere effort to reply to every email inquiry.
Be a half hour early! We always leave early!
..except when someone shows up right on time.Clients (but not the Captain) arriving late will see the west end of an east-bound boat.
With a limited number of reserved spots, I do not refund because you
overslept or had a flat. No Refund or Reschedule for a missed trip!
Trips Also Announced on Facebook at Morning Star Fishing
https://www.facebook.com/ocfishing/ & my personal FB page along with after action (or lack thereof) reports..
Bait is provided on all trips—Clam & squid now. Rod rentals are $7.00 & include all rigs.
Bait is provided on all trips—Clam & squid now. Rod rentals are $7.00 & include all rigs.
It's Simple To Prevent Motion Sickness, Difficult To Cure. Bonine
seems best because it's non-drowsy. Truly cheap & effective insurance.
Honestly - If you get to go on the ocean once month, once a year, or
even less; why risk chumming all day? Similarly, if you howl at the
moon all night, chances are good you'll howl into a bucket all day.
Bring A Cooler With Ice For Your Fish – A 48 Quart Cooler Is Fine For
Two People. Do Not Bring A Very Large Coffin Cooler. We DO have a few
loaners - you'll still need ice.
No Galley! Bring Food & Beverages To Suit. A few beers in cans is fine for the ride home.
seems best because it's non-drowsy. Truly cheap & effective insurance.
Honestly - If you get to go on the ocean once month, once a year, or
even less; why risk chumming all day? Similarly, if you howl at the
moon all night, chances are good you'll howl into a bucket all day.
Bring A Cooler With Ice For Your Fish – A 48 Quart Cooler Is Fine For
Two People. Do Not Bring A Very Large Coffin Cooler. We DO have a few
loaners - you'll still need ice.
No Galley! Bring Food & Beverages To Suit. A few beers in cans is fine for the ride home.
Wishbone never replaces backbone.. Have to keep a shoulder into reef building to make it happen.
Donations help too! Ocreefs.org
Have CRAZY opportunities this fall - Great Time To Donate!!
Please Donate!!
**********
Reef Report 12/8/20
Cement Boat's a Comin'!
..and building reef into 2021
Greetings Reef Supporters!
I had tried for months to get an abandoned cement sailboat over near the Bay Bridge down here for reefing - Fail.
The marina where it's occupying valuable real estate just tried a trucking company down in VA Beach - we have a deal!
The boat will arrive and be immediately launched at the OC Fishing Center on December 10th about lunchtime (Thanks Rolfe and OCFC!) We'll hand walk it into a slip and begin making it fit for reefing.
I anticipate a lot of trash and hope there's not much oil. We may need to remove some wood as well. Anything that can float or otherwise not 'made fast' has to go.
Day one clean up will begin at 1pm on Thursday, Dec 10th. If launch runs late we can at least stockpile some block to ballast it.
Cleaning may not be too bad, but moving block is heavy work. Leather work gloves a minimum..
if you'd like to volunteer please email me at Capt.monty@ocreefs.org
Apologies are not needed. Really.
Our Benelli Reef Raffle keeps chugging along. Have been drawing three t-shirt winners every Sunday night. If someone gets picked twice they'll get a sweatshirt. No luck yet, but it's bound to happen.
These winning tickets are then put right back in the fishbowl.
If you'd like to support our reef building efforts via raffle please visit Raceway Citgo (by Grabs To Go where the cream of crab soup makes an unreal pasta sauce..) Atlantic Tackle & AllTackle (where Santa hangs I hear) Optical Galleria in WOC (where their new line of "Hook" sunglasses with Zeiss lenses have outperformed all the top brands in my wheelhouse - true statement!) Paul Reyburn's JPR Custom Rods; my boat, of course, if you're aboard; or, for the first time ever, online at ocreefs.org - find the Donate page and pick the 'raffle' button, we'll fill out the stubs and email you a pic.
There's even a fellow on FaceBook, David Hammond, who builds rods as a hobby. Anyone who buys raffle tix from him enters his own raffle - a raffle within a raffle - where some lucky donor will get a rod he built. That's pretty cool..
We also have our "Name a Reef" program - a way to get your name on our charts, and various other donation levels with swag. Courtney has even begun a list of pre-paid 2021 reef charts. That chart book will likely come out in early March 2021 and include all 2020's construction.
OCRF has a 200' hopper barge in Baltimore at the McLean yard that will soon become our largest reef deployment ever. Incredibly, McLean is considering putting a 45' tug and an 80' barge (that's never going to float again!) INSIDE the 200 footer!
Then we'll add some concrete pipe and such donated by Nicky Ferrara at Bear Concrete (trucking and all!) then cut holes inside and out of the barge (& little tug!) which will prevent an anoxic interior. All these efforts will make this The Most Incredible Barge Reef Ever!
And, (I can't believe I'm writing this,) that's hardly going to be the highlight of the next 12 months.. New Coast Guard regulations are really cracking eggs in the tugboat industry, this while scrap steel is at a dismal low. I've been contacted by several major companies about reefing because their older tugs, despite near perfect maintenance, are failing inspection. One caller has "10 or 12" tugs we can have!
Not going to be free, but cheap is good too.. Volunteers and MONEY will be essential to getting as many tugs on the bottom as possible while this opportunity is in play. It will not last forever. These are big companies. They're NOT going to tie up valuable bulkhead with tugs that can no longer earn their keep.
When you see huge ships sunk you're looking at MILLIONS of dollars in cleaning and, most likely, a state program.
When we sank the tug "Hoss" in late September it was You who donated $48,000.00 to make all that happen. Purchase, cleaning, towing, sinking - our charts & t-shirt style fundraising sank that tug.
There is no Maryland State Marine Artificial Reef Program. The Town of Ocean City holds our Army Corps Reef Permits & our little non-profit does all the building..
There is no office save the room in my house packed to the ceiling (literally) and wherever Courtney & I happen to be working. No one's on salary. Nobody's ever had a steak dinner with reef donors' money.
We do have to comply with ACE permitting requirements, plus keep the IRS happy with proper accounting. Otherwise donations become reef.
Donations now are going to really have an impact. Tugs make great reef and last a looooong time.
Help if able! Pre-sponsor OCRF for 2021 charts, get some raffle tix; while not at all t-shirt vendors, if you sponsor $25.00 we'll try to find a size and color t-shirt you want. $60.00 for a sweat..
We've never done that with our shirts before, but this is a once in a lifetime opportunity..
Below is the least of our reef building, the block tallies for what my crew and I drop every trip. Lately we've been burning through a load of 16x20 chimney blocks. They are, by far, the best reef building blocks I've found yet.
They were also the most expensive! I'm hunting some "off inventory" blocks for our next load..
Free is good!
They all build reef!
In fact, our block drops have built some fine reefs; saved several from sand-scour too.
Lets Build Some Reef!
Cheers!
Monty
Block & Pyramid Tallies..
As of 12/7/20 we have 32,228 Reef Blocks + 263 Concrete Pyramids (170lb ea) deployed at numerous ACE permitted reef sites.
Currently being targeted: Virginia Lee Hawkins Memorial Reef 99 Reef Blocks (+ 47 Reef Pyramids begun 8/18/20) - Capt. Jack Kaeufer's Reef 1,628 Blocks (+44 Reef Pyramids) - Doug Ake's Reef 4,114 blocks (+16 Pyramid Reef Pyramids) - St. Ann's 2,505 (+6 Reef Pyramids) - Sue's Block Drop 1,538 (+20 Reef Pyramids) - TwoTanks Reef 1,223 (+ 11 Reef Pyramids) - Capt. Bob's Inshore Block Drop 912 - Benelli Reef 1,471 (+ 15 Pyramids) - Rudy's Reef 389 - Capt. Bob's Bass Grounds Reef 3,154 (+52 reef pyramids) - Wolf & Daughters Reef 734 - Al Berger's Reef 607 (+4 Reef Pyramids) - Great Eastern Block Drop 854 (+9 Reef Pyramids).. And a soon-to-be-named reef at Russell's Reef 12 & 49 Pyramids - plus we've also begun work at Capt Greg Hall's Memorial Reef with 48 Tog Penthouse Blocks.
We press ahead..
Capt Monty Hawkins
capt.monty@ocreefs.org
Cement Boat's a Comin'!
..and building reef into 2021
Greetings Reef Supporters!
I had tried for months to get an abandoned cement sailboat over near the Bay Bridge down here for reefing - Fail.
The marina where it's occupying valuable real estate just tried a trucking company down in VA Beach - we have a deal!
The boat will arrive and be immediately launched at the OC Fishing Center on December 10th about lunchtime (Thanks Rolfe and OCFC!) We'll hand walk it into a slip and begin making it fit for reefing.
I anticipate a lot of trash and hope there's not much oil. We may need to remove some wood as well. Anything that can float or otherwise not 'made fast' has to go.
Day one clean up will begin at 1pm on Thursday, Dec 10th. If launch runs late we can at least stockpile some block to ballast it.
Cleaning may not be too bad, but moving block is heavy work. Leather work gloves a minimum..
if you'd like to volunteer please email me at Capt.monty@ocreefs.org
Apologies are not needed. Really.
Our Benelli Reef Raffle keeps chugging along. Have been drawing three t-shirt winners every Sunday night. If someone gets picked twice they'll get a sweatshirt. No luck yet, but it's bound to happen.
These winning tickets are then put right back in the fishbowl.
If you'd like to support our reef building efforts via raffle please visit Raceway Citgo (by Grabs To Go where the cream of crab soup makes an unreal pasta sauce..) Atlantic Tackle & AllTackle (where Santa hangs I hear) Optical Galleria in WOC (where their new line of "Hook" sunglasses with Zeiss lenses have outperformed all the top brands in my wheelhouse - true statement!) Paul Reyburn's JPR Custom Rods; my boat, of course, if you're aboard; or, for the first time ever, online at ocreefs.org - find the Donate page and pick the 'raffle' button, we'll fill out the stubs and email you a pic.
There's even a fellow on FaceBook, David Hammond, who builds rods as a hobby. Anyone who buys raffle tix from him enters his own raffle - a raffle within a raffle - where some lucky donor will get a rod he built. That's pretty cool..
We also have our "Name a Reef" program - a way to get your name on our charts, and various other donation levels with swag. Courtney has even begun a list of pre-paid 2021 reef charts. That chart book will likely come out in early March 2021 and include all 2020's construction.
OCRF has a 200' hopper barge in Baltimore at the McLean yard that will soon become our largest reef deployment ever. Incredibly, McLean is considering putting a 45' tug and an 80' barge (that's never going to float again!) INSIDE the 200 footer!
Then we'll add some concrete pipe and such donated by Nicky Ferrara at Bear Concrete (trucking and all!) then cut holes inside and out of the barge (& little tug!) which will prevent an anoxic interior. All these efforts will make this The Most Incredible Barge Reef Ever!
And, (I can't believe I'm writing this,) that's hardly going to be the highlight of the next 12 months.. New Coast Guard regulations are really cracking eggs in the tugboat industry, this while scrap steel is at a dismal low. I've been contacted by several major companies about reefing because their older tugs, despite near perfect maintenance, are failing inspection. One caller has "10 or 12" tugs we can have!
Not going to be free, but cheap is good too.. Volunteers and MONEY will be essential to getting as many tugs on the bottom as possible while this opportunity is in play. It will not last forever. These are big companies. They're NOT going to tie up valuable bulkhead with tugs that can no longer earn their keep.
When you see huge ships sunk you're looking at MILLIONS of dollars in cleaning and, most likely, a state program.
When we sank the tug "Hoss" in late September it was You who donated $48,000.00 to make all that happen. Purchase, cleaning, towing, sinking - our charts & t-shirt style fundraising sank that tug.
There is no Maryland State Marine Artificial Reef Program. The Town of Ocean City holds our Army Corps Reef Permits & our little non-profit does all the building..
There is no office save the room in my house packed to the ceiling (literally) and wherever Courtney & I happen to be working. No one's on salary. Nobody's ever had a steak dinner with reef donors' money.
We do have to comply with ACE permitting requirements, plus keep the IRS happy with proper accounting. Otherwise donations become reef.
Donations now are going to really have an impact. Tugs make great reef and last a looooong time.
Help if able! Pre-sponsor OCRF for 2021 charts, get some raffle tix; while not at all t-shirt vendors, if you sponsor $25.00 we'll try to find a size and color t-shirt you want. $60.00 for a sweat..
We've never done that with our shirts before, but this is a once in a lifetime opportunity..
Below is the least of our reef building, the block tallies for what my crew and I drop every trip. Lately we've been burning through a load of 16x20 chimney blocks. They are, by far, the best reef building blocks I've found yet.
They were also the most expensive! I'm hunting some "off inventory" blocks for our next load..
Free is good!
They all build reef!
In fact, our block drops have built some fine reefs; saved several from sand-scour too.
Lets Build Some Reef!
Cheers!
Monty
Block & Pyramid Tallies..
As of 12/7/20 we have 32,228 Reef Blocks + 263 Concrete Pyramids (170lb ea) deployed at numerous ACE permitted reef sites.
Currently being targeted: Virginia Lee Hawkins Memorial Reef 99 Reef Blocks (+ 47 Reef Pyramids begun 8/18/20) - Capt. Jack Kaeufer's Reef 1,628 Blocks (+44 Reef Pyramids) - Doug Ake's Reef 4,114 blocks (+16 Pyramid Reef Pyramids) - St. Ann's 2,505 (+6 Reef Pyramids) - Sue's Block Drop 1,538 (+20 Reef Pyramids) - TwoTanks Reef 1,223 (+ 11 Reef Pyramids) - Capt. Bob's Inshore Block Drop 912 - Benelli Reef 1,471 (+ 15 Pyramids) - Rudy's Reef 389 - Capt. Bob's Bass Grounds Reef 3,154 (+52 reef pyramids) - Wolf & Daughters Reef 734 - Al Berger's Reef 607 (+4 Reef Pyramids) - Great Eastern Block Drop 854 (+9 Reef Pyramids).. And a soon-to-be-named reef at Russell's Reef 12 & 49 Pyramids - plus we've also begun work at Capt Greg Hall's Memorial Reef with 48 Tog Penthouse Blocks.
We press ahead..
Capt Monty Hawkins
capt.monty@ocreefs.org
Capt Monty Hawkins
Mhawkins@morningstarfishing.com
