Capt. Pete Ide, Charter Fishing, Solomons, MD

Things have gotten extremely busy here! Rockfish have been plentiful in the daytime. Live-bait fishing with spot is producing some fish in the mid-30-inch range. It’s shaping up to be one of the best years we’ve had on spot in several years. We probably had 500 or so spot and perch combined on Saturday. Business has picked up some, but it’s still slow. I’ve been doing a lot of commercial hook and line fishing to fill in the gaps which has been pretty good as well. It’s a ton of work! In 95-degree heat one day last week, I caught 81 fish by myself. THAT was a lot of work. Croaker fishing remains fair. 12-25 fish per person seems to be the standard. I saw a lot of fish the other night, though, and we caught a fair amount despite a roaring flood tide which was encouraging. I was thinking that had we had a fair tide, fishing might have been pretty darn good.

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Check out this nice summer rock! We’ve found some big ones and some spot are showing up. We had 9 big rock trolling last night. I plan on doing some live-line fishing this week. For those who have had spot, live-lining has been good. I will let you know.

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I will be doing a lot of commercial hook and line fishing this year. I’m always looking for help. I can take two people with me, so if you’re interested in cranking your arms off, let me know!

Croaker fishing was generally this week, though it was lousy last night. Some storms in the area brought the wind up and that was it.

Remember that the Comfort Inn has a great rate for our customers. I’m pretty sure it’s $64 per night, but call the hotel to check. The new marina is really nice, too. there are picnic tables and shade trees for before and after your trip. Order ahead and I can get steamed or live crabs for you. The Captain’s Table restaurant at the marina is great, too. They’ll cook your catch for you!

Here is a great pic from a few weeks ago sent in by a client.

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Fishing for rockfish remains steady. We actually went chumming (see pics below) for the first time in years over the weekend. It wasn’t too bad. We caught ten nice rock we could keep. The fish wouldn’t stay with us for some reason though, and the bite petered out. We were able to catch the remainder of our fish with rubber. It was kind of crazy. Standing at the chum bucket while fishing with people who have fished with me for 15 or more brought back a flood of great memories. I sure have had a lot of great times out there on the bay, and man, we used to catch A LOT of fish chumming.

We also caught some croaker over the weekend. One night we had a fair number of fish, but they were of marginal size. Another night we had some beautiful, big croaker (see pics). We didn’t load the boat or anything, but they were pretty fish!

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