By Scott Lenox
Published on August 15, 2024
We had another beautiful day in and around Ocean City today with warm temperatures, sunny skies and pleasant August temperatures. It was a great day to be out on the water or to catch some scale action at Bahia Marina!
Today was Day 1 of the 30th Annual Captain Steve’s Poor Girl’s Open and it was a very busy day at the scales. I worked at Bahia Marina in 1994 when Steve Harman had the idea to create the Poor Girl’s Open and was involved in planning and organizing the very first event. I’m not sure Captain Steve thought the tournament would get to where it is today, but I’m sure he looks on with incredible pride at what he created. I’m honored to still be a small part of it as a presenter. Congratulations to Steve’s brother Shawn, his daughters Jocelyn and Taylor and the rest of the Bahia Marina family on an amazing 30 years! Here’s who’s in the lead after the first day of fishing.
Marlin release
1st place Sea Hag 8 releases of white marlin
2nd Place Boss Hogg 1 Blue Marlin Release 1 White Marlin Release
3rd place Pipe Dreamer 2 White Marlin Release 10:00 am Tiebreak
tuna
None
Mahi
1st place Espadon 53.3 pounds
Wahoo
1st place WOP 49.2 pounds
Junior Anglers
Clara Collins 4.9 lbs Mahi
Captain Monty Hawkins of the Morning Star enjoyed a smooth trip today and some really nice sea bass.
Smooth. Once again, it runs smoothly: I’ll take it!
Headed out to Al Berger’s Reef North where my old OC Princess deckhand Brian and his daughter Alyssa sent a block unit of bamboo to the reef below.
Next, we loaded a pair of pyramids onto the ramp and attached bamboo to them as well before the extraordinary OCReef volunteer Sandra and her friend Doreen sent them down as well.
From there?
East
..where I realized I was involved in a fiasco.
The water temperature there was 69.5 degrees – 6.5 degrees less than on Tuesday.
Unreal.
I didn’t even try Mahi in this water temperature. The Sea Bass looked fantastic though. A huge school was well upstream from the reef – a situation that is normally fun.
Instead, I think Hurricane is taking his new ‘Skunk Life’ lifestyle attire a bit too seriously. When he swooped out of a drift into a huge cloud of sea bass and was anchored, he only caught three redfish (ling for the old hands…)
Whaaaaat???
With all the bass on the screen, we caught three hake and not a single sea bass. What on earth that meant, I couldn’t guess. Cold shock?
Oh man. The day flew by.
We lifted anchor and continued east. Found surface water at 23 degrees and searched for Mahi for a while.
No joy.
I’ve dropped anchor again and again – now I’m catching good sea bass and still the occasional red hake.
On my third Cbass spot the ling came a little better. We even had a double red hake. To be honest, I can’t remember that since 1994?!?
John & John had 9 lings – (Hey Ted!!) Ray was high hook for Cbass – and so help me God, Hurricane Murray won the pool!
I also saw a fin whale a few times today.
Greetings, �Monty
Wrote this some time ago – information about scallops.
Maybe we were barred from here because of the “graying disease” – or maybe the fishermen simply left the area alone because of the bad meat.
Net effect? More hake!
*****
Urophycis Chuss (also known to DelMarVa anglers as ling or hake – red hake) (Wiki has a picture of a spotted hake where there should be a red hake!)…Ling were once very common – really numerous! – even in 60 feet of water, just 4 miles offshore, before my time. Ugly guys, but some who fried fish loved them.
I have occasionally witnessed inshore fishing, but in my early years as a captain (1986/7) clients were catching large numbers of Red Hake in 120 to 150 feet of water.
Then Georges Bank closed in 1993 and scallop efforts shifted south with a vengeance. Since the life cycle of a red hake includes the first few months of seeking shelter in a live scallop (up to 5.5 inches, as I recall) during the day, this fishery off DelMarVa completely collapsed with the sudden arrival of scallops.
Apart from some of my oldest customers, at least the bluefin tuna, they will certainly be missed.
Cheers
Monty
