Bottom fishing out of ocean city

[duckhunting23]

We are going to be taking my boat down to the beach (Ocean City MD) this year and would like some help on proper rigging for offshore bottom fishing. What are some of the more productive rigging techniques for fishing that area and what types of fish should we be targeting. We will be down there the week of July 2nd-9th. Any information would be greatly appreciated. We took the boat down last summer and ran it out to the Jackspot and trolled for a few hours with no luck what so ever so we figured bottom fishing may be the ticket this year. Thanks again and I look forward to your responses.

-DH23

[lsider]

Early to mid July offshore bottom fishing is typically anchoring on top of a wreck or artificial reef for sea bass or drifting around wrecks or uneven bottom for flounder.
Inshore trolling along the 20 fa line may get you into bluefin tuna and bluefish. Further offshore from the 40 to the edge you may get into yellowfins, bigeye and mahis depending on water temps and eddies. Drifting around uneven bottom and shoals between the 20 and 40 fathoms may get you into blue sharks and makos depending on water temps. Drifting shark baits further offshore (80 fa +) may get you into the large female makos; drifting bottom baits in those depths may also get you tile fish.
Talk to the local bait shops, read the Coastal Fisherman paper for the few weeks prior to your trip and you will get a flavor of what the bite is.

[Bert Rodgers]

The 1st thing you should do is join the OC Reef Foundation. For the $25 membership you get the GPS coordinates and a chart for the hundreds of structure projects that have saved the bottom fishing off of OC.

Basic bottom rigs and bank sinkers in wieghts from 2 oz up to 10 oz , depending on depth and current. Bait: squid, live minnows and cut bait for bass,flounder and croakers. Green crabs, peelers and clams for togs. Triggers will eat any of them.

If you are fishing the structure such as the subway cars near the jackspot or twin wrecks anything could be there. Several species of sharks including makos and threshers are common. Bluefin tuna, false albacore, bluefish mahi mahi,king mackeral and cobia can be anywhere in the water column and amberjacks can be on the structure it'self .
If the water temps are warm enough, anything can happen.

It's a good idea to have a decent jigging settup and have one guy dropping irion while the others fish their baits.

Good luck

Bert

[duckhunting23]

Thank you both for the information. I just repowered my boat with a new e-tec so I will feel a little better going a bit farther out now. The subway cars? are they right at the jackspot?

[captnemo]

If you want to catch fish out of OC you do one of two things. 1) run way the F### offshore and pray for a decent day, most times you will be disappointed. 2) get into jigging and hit the wrecks (better option)

Best day out of OC in the last 2 year out of probably 20 trips we had 14 bites, raised 3 whites, caught a mako, lost a nice tuna and caught a bunch of gaffers, this is by far an exception to the rule.

The last 2 years fishing in OC sucked! I'm sure some die hard OC boys will say other wise, but its a fact it sucks. When you see the charters that run all summer come in with a limit of peanut dolphin and are happy, that should tell you something about their expectations.

You can have a banner day on dolphin if you get to a lobster ball first or find your own floating debris, they are usually loaded with dolphin, but the lobster balls are 60 miles out and on a nice weekend day will be picked clean.


Inshore wreck/reef fishing as mentioned is great. So join the reef foundation and get some coordinates, get a dozen or more vertical jigs any style, and hit those reefs, we did this the last two years and always is a lot of fun and good eating on the seabass and taug.

[duckhunting23]

I purchased a jigging setup last year and a shimano jig bag full of 100-200 gram jigs. I would like to get out and try that. Is it a slow jig or more of the speed jigging off these wrecks?

[captnemo]

I purchased a jigging setup last year and a shimano jig bag full of 100-200 gram jigs. I would like to get out and try that. Is it a slow jig or more of the speed jigging off these wrecks?

I am no jigging expert, just got into it the last year or two, but we just bounce them off the bottom while drifting over the wrecks, come up a couple cranks while jigging, if no bites, drop back down and jig/crank up just a couple cranks maybe 10 ft max. before re-dropping.

We caught a lot of seabass this way. One thing we notice after about 20 sea bass, the bite would just shut off. You had to switch jigs to turn them back on.

[duckhunting23]

Awesome thanks for the info. Sounds like that is what I am gonna try.