Capt. Pete Ide, Charter Fishing, Solomons, MD

Well, it’s been a ‘rocky’ (pun definitely not intended) fall trophy season thus far. We’ve caught some nice fish and more have shown up recently, but overall it’s been a disappointment compared to the last few years. The good news is that the weather has been very nice and on most days we’re still able to produce a limit of smaller fish with some nice ones mixed in. The fish are very fat this time of year and that helps. There is still a huge amount of bait fish (bunkers) in the Bay. It has me thinking the fish will show up eventually. In past years when the fish have been late, many people gave up on them and December ended up being very good fishing with not many boats out there. Hopefully that will be the case this year!

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Great news! We have caught a few big fish this week and I have heard of more being caught in the area. Hopefully this means they are finally showing up. They are late this year and everyone has been sweating whether or not they will show. I spoke to the eel man this morning and he said he’s still selling a bunch of eels in New Jersey, which means there are likely still a bunch of rockfish up there.  Apparently the fish are dragging their fins getting here.

A lot of people have been asking me about Virginia Beach. I am accepting reservations for trips down there, but if it gets cold and it looks like the fish will be offshore, there is no sense in going. If you really want to go catch a big rockfish, come see me in Solomons, where we can do it legally!

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Hello again!

Well, it’s time for fall trophy rockfish. Apparently nobody told the fish as they have yet to show up in significant numbers. We have been fighting some really lousy weather, though. Yesterday we had north winds gusting to 30 knots and the Bay wasn’t really fit to fish. Hopefully next weekend will be better. Fishing has been excellent for 18-24 inch fish. I did some commercial hook and line fishing the past couple of weeks to fill in the gaps and it was pretty darn good. I thought everyone would like to see the stomach contents of a couple of particularly hungry fish I cleaned recently. Check out the spot, little crabs and and what might be a baby red drum. I will be fishing in Solomons until December 15 and I have quite a bit of availability so call and book a trip today! Also, check out Nick and Britta on their anniversary fishing trip.

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