25, 30 & 31 Aug reports

[Tawn]

30 Aug - Fished with 4 buddies on my boat. Marty helped speed up the spot fishing by calling us over to where he and John were at since we weren't exactly setting the world on fire outside the jetties. Once again, we headed back down to Tilghmans. Marty & John were done and they suggested I drop back in by Big Will. By the time I got there, that slot was taken. Putzed around west of the crowd, till saw some promising marks. Anchored up and slid back on the peripheral. A little better grade of fish - most were mid twenties. When we went to leave, the anchor was hung. I have a big, commercial EZ Anchor Puller windlass and it stalled as soon as I got over the anchor. After a professional grade cursing streak, I managed to get it free by gently driving over the top of it and pulling it from the other direction. Headed back to Deale at noon, I decided to screw around and try drifting along a little deeper of a edge than I normally perch fish. Caught enough spot for the charter trip the following day and whacked fourteen 12-15" croaker before we ran out of blood worms. Tied up at the harbor and had the girls cook up our fish for lunch.

31 Aug - Worked a charter with Capt Shawn. The people didn't want to do anything but liveline rockfish - once they had their rockfish they wanted to go in....sweet, makes for a short day. Once again we headed back down to Tilghman. Couldn't buy a fish! Screwed around down there looking and setting up on less than desirable marks till nearly 1pm. Finally, Shawn said the hell with this - we're going back to behind #84A! Bang - done in less than a hour with a couple nice 25-27" fish. The last rockfish was caught with the last spot on the boat! It took all darned day, be we got them all...so much for my "short day"!

[5th Tuition]

Tawn, as you know, we had a tough morning at Tilghman livelining as well We had wind against tide when we got there. I spent an hour experimenting with how to keep spot from customers lines from "marrying".
We picked up two fish during this time, when normally we should have been done. We decided to "flip" our day. We generally liveline to get our rock, then troll for our blues. We slid out of the pack and I rigged the spreader bars and spoons.
It wasn't long before we found breakers. Blues on top lines, rock on deeper rigs. We filled our box with small keeper rock (19 inches) and kept thirty blues.
The plan was to go back to Tilghman after the tide had changed so that livelinning would have been easier. The customers were happy with the small rock and "rejoiced" whenever one came over the side from trolling. They weren't as interested in the blues, so thirty were enough. We did some C/R with more blues, then headed home.
5th

[Skip]

Tawn - any chance you got numbers for that mystery snag ?

I'm always game to dive " hangs " - never know what they are.

Often find few other anchors on them.

[Tawn]

No Skip I don't but I was on the Southwest corner of the reef as it appears on a chartplotter.

Saturday I watched George on the charter boat Miss Leana have a hell'uv a time getting his anchor up and another Deale captain told me he won't fish on the reef anymore after he lost all his ground tackle on a snag in there.

I know there are tires around the area as well. They look like big drum on your meter and a couple of boats have hauled them up with their anchors.