Maryland Inshore Fishing Reports Aug 25 - Aug 31

[Steve]

Head to the shore, bays and rivers folks! The water is at it's warmest so far this year. With averages from the upper 70's in the surf to the mid and upper 80's in the inlying waters of the bays and rivers.

Still all the regular critters to be caught, some are getting bigger and beggin' to be caught! Get out and enjoy.

As always, let us know how the trip went, catch or no catch.

[Dave]

hit AI this eve with a few good friends, bugs were not to bad considering a south west wind most of the eve. As for fish, not much in that category, one spot on my bait rod, just before dark I landed a 42 inch wide butterfly ray, a few skate after dark and that was it. I plan on heading back out tomorrow. All in all I fished about 12 hours today.

[Sam]

That's a big ray. Yeah, water temps seem to be hovering around 72 degrees. I was hoping they would rise a little considering the E wind we've had lately, but oh well. Maybe a drum soon?

[Dave]

well I fished tuesday eve from 4pm till 6am, chilly night, water was a lot warmer than the outside air, caught a ton of croaker when I arrived, and ended up releasing 5 of them. total caught 12. sizes averaged around 10 inches. After dark got the usual suspects doggies, skate and caught one sand tiger close to 6 feet. took a few pics then watched him swim away, caught him on the incoming tide around 3 am. as for tuesday that was about it .

[Dave]

just got in from ai again tonight, three day total 39 hours of fishin.
tonight was a little warmer than yesterday. arrived at the afternoon high tide and only caught a few croaker and managed one smaller sandbar 3.5 feet. On the incoming high tide just after 1 am had two sandtigers on within 10 minutes of each other. so pretty slow couple days with a few bursts of excitement. but much better than last week. I cannot wait for the drum. I just want to catch a few more of them large sandbar to get me ready.

[Steve]

Nice catches Dave, bet ya put some good leader on earlier this week, eh? Nice to be catching of some size, hope it continues for at least a couple more weeks.

[Dave]

Nice catches Dave, bet ya put some good leader on earlier this week, eh? Nice to be catching of some size, hope it continues for at least a couple more weeks.

re did all my reels and line, didnt want to put anything to chance, and well it paid off.

[Sam]

Good job, Dave. I'm glad you got some action.

[ffemtreed]

Fished A.I. pretty hard last night from around 5:30 till a little past midnight. Nice east breeze blowing in, water was really warm. No real bug problems. There was a lot of mist coming in off the water, it was almost like it was raining at times. It was absolutely pitch black dark out, it was the first time in a long time I needed my headlamp at night.

We didn't catch any sharks, not even a hit or bite off. There was some spot in the water and a guy who was fishing down from us said he was catching a lot of blues right before high tide. opps!, Amanda (fishngrl422) did catch what was probably an 18" doggie!

Now for the catch of the night, This one almost gives Trowpa a run for his money. We where sitting by the campfire and one of Grossy's rods starts screaming like I have never heard a reel. Well about a minute later we are reeling this thing in and start here it thrashing in the break. So we start shining lights on it and it was a big pelican, the thing was probably 2 1/2 feet high with a 20 inch beak on it. He was caught in a whole mess of stuff and couldn't fly. Grossy's line was actually caught in a stick that was part of the mess and not the pelican itself, so we where able to free it from the line. Unfortunally as we got close to it, the thing freaked out and ran back into the surf never to be seen again. From the look we got it looked like all the junk was caught up and wrapped on an ankle tag that was on the pelican.

[trowpa]

Wow - nice attempt guys - but seriously - ANYONE can catch a LIVE seagull. Try catching a DEAD seagull like i did - and then maybe you can run with the big dogs

[trowpa]

Hey dave- that a float i see in your pics? What kind of rig you using? and were you casting?

[Steve]

Jim, might want to look into the ankle tag and method of attachment. Sounds like the tag may lead to problems ( as seen) if the current style is continued to be used. I don't know who you would contact, maybe DNR?
Too bad you didn't get to see a number or something...

We need to help these critters out all that we can, nice try though.

[Dave]

Hey dave- that a float i see in your pics? What kind of rig you using? and were you casting?

trowpa - yes I am using a float and casting, I use a rig similar to a drum rig except with wire bite leader, the float is attached to the bite leader to a 12/0 mustad circle demon hook, and on the other end I have two glow beads and my fish finder sinker holder attached to my shock leader.

[ffemtreed]

Jim, might want to look into the ankle tag and method of attachment. Sounds like the tag may lead to problems ( as seen) if the current style is continued to be used. I don't know who you would contact, maybe DNR?
Too bad you didn't get to see a number or something...

We need to help these critters out all that we can, nice try though.

We did call the DNR but they didn't seem to care. If it was light out I may have been able to get a closer look but in the dark I think my headlamp was freaking the bird out. I couldn't get within 5ft of it.

[fishin'girl422]

I called the ranger station to see the best way to get the line free of the pelican and had them on the phone and explained that there was debris caught in the tag and that it couldn't fly because of the debris caught in the tag. The ranger, who didn't give his name, said that if it was monday - friday 8 - 5 resource management would have been available to help - but he didn't think he needed to wake someone up. He lead me to believe he was going to call DNR, asked for my phone number and location but no one every showed up.