Capt. Pete Ide, Charter Fishing, Solomons, MD

Croaker fishing is really picking up! Last night we caught the biggest croakers of the year so far!

The rockfish have picked up a little bit, but are still inconsistent. Things are looking up.

Check out the great pics!

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This year is shaping up to be the best year of croaker fishing in several years. We have had excellent catches in the few nights we’ve gone out so far. Most have been small, but a few bigger ones are showing up. I’m hoping to post a few pictures of our bottom fishing trips soon. My Blackberry died and the pics are in it. I hope to be able to retrieve them by mid-week.

It was a hit-and-miss week of rockfish fishing. The fish are there. I can see them on the fish finder. Getting them to bite has been the issue. When they do bite, though, we’ve still been catching some nice-sized fish. We had a 16-pounder on Monday.

We caught our first bluefish of the year over the weekend. I have heard of a few being caught.

I’m extremely busy this time of year, so sometimes it takes me a little longer than I’d like to return calls and emails. When this is the case, thanks for your patience!

Good fishing for rockfish over the past week. We have continued trolling as there have been no spot for live-lining as of yet. There were rockfish of the surface near Cove Point and fishing was red-hot Saturday morning. The fish have been primarily 2-5 pounds, but we had a 36-inch fish that weighed around 20 pounds on Saturday.

I’m supposed to go croaker fishing this week so I’ll let you know how that goes. I’ve talked to guys who have been out and it sounds like fishing is pretty decent for 10-13-inch fish.

More good fishing this past week. We caught limits of 18-28″ fish with a few big ones mixed in. The fish were pretty close except for Sunday evening. I talked with the morning boats on the way out and the were all complaining of slow fishing. I had a big crowd and I made my mind up I wouldn’t stop until I saw something worth fishing on. The guys were pretty restless after more than two hours of riding and looking. They weren’t as restless as I was. Those of you who know me know how I get when I can’t find the fish . We made it to within sight of the towers on the Bay Bridge. Ugh! We went there on a couple of reports of breaking fish (fish on the surface) with birds on them. We got all the way up there for what seemed to be ‘the feathers’, which is what we say when we arrive at a fishing area after the big bite is over. I thought ‘Well, I’m certainly going to look like a jackass today’. I rode around a bit, though, and saw a good mess of fish on the bottom with the depth finder, the first I’d seen all afternoon. Within 15 minutes the fish popped back up and it was game on from there. We ended up catching two for everyone on board and the guys were pretty excited (and drunk). They were some very cool dudes from Navair at Patuxent River who all work on the new JSF-35 or the Joint Strike Fighter. The party included a bunch of Brits who are ‘over here’ working on their version of the bird. One of them is doing a good job of stealing all the American girls away from us. His name will go unmentioned . Good times.

We also managed to catch the first non-rockfish of the year over the weekend. You may recognize the guy who caught this croaker from CNN. He is an ex-Marine who stood like a statue at the White House with the President. Pretty cool stuff. I’m working on getting his name and permission to use it. I am supposed to go night fishing for the first time this week so I will let you know how that turns out. I have heard encouraging reports from down the Bay with some up-and-down results which is actually good for this early in the year.

The past week produced mixed results as the bulk of the big rockfish moved out of the Bay. We had some good trips, but we had a couple of slow trips as well. Luckily the 18-inch fish season came in Sunday and Sunday and Monday’s trips were terrific. We still caught a few big fish and were able to supplement the catch with some 18-28 inch fish. On Monday there were several schools of fish on the surface with birds working. It was lots of fun after some slow trips to go through the birds and hook 5 or 6 fish at once! We even had a few double-headers, or two fish on the same line.

We are supposed to try a little bottom fishing Friday evening. I’ve heard unsubstantiated reports of a few croakers being caught, so perhaps we’ll see.

I have openings the next couple of weekends, so grab a few friends and come down for some pretty good fishing.

More good fishing over the weekend, despite HOWLING winds. Saturday afternoon the wind gusted over 40 knots, but we managed to catch 7 keepers and had another fish in the net when it rolled out, spat the hook, and swam away . My bad. I was on the net. Still, I was darn proud of those 7 fish. I feel like I’m just now recovering from the beating we took on Friday and Saturday. Starting this Saturday (5-15) we can keep two 18″ fish. I saw some smaller fish around on the depth finder over the weekend. I’ve also seen what I believe to be croaker around on the bottom, so I’m encouraged for the upcoming night fishing season.

Check out my crew from Friday. They flew down to St. Mary’s airport in this Citation C-5 private jet! They flew down from Frederick, MD. They said it took 26 minutes. Very cool.

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Well, here it is…

For a change, the event exceeded the hype! The ladies fishing trip was a smash hit. The weather was perfect, the girls were hot and the fishing was great. We caught a few, then had a long dry spell. A lot of the girls were restless and ready to throw in the towel. Jenn, the leader of this group of sexy anglers, was steadfast and insisted we give it a little longer. I urged them not to give up until we tried my super-secret fishing hole. It was a case of the fish being able to make you look like a stud or a jackass. It took us a long time to troll to the hole. We needed four fish for a limit when we got there. We hooked one up right away. I would have been happy with that, but then I saw the tell-tale red blobs on the fish finder. I walked in back and said ‘They’re here.’ Then, boom, boom boom boom! Five on at once! We boated four of them and up the bay we went. As the sunset faded into the gathering clouds and the lights began to twinkle on the shore, we pulled into Solomons harbor. I was thinking this was one of the best trips I’ve ever had and wondered how on Earth it could be topped. Check out our Facebook fan page for more great pics of this incredible trip!

Overall, the weekend fishing was decent, with the exception of Friday. Friday was my worst day. I landed on dead water and stayed on dead water. There has been some of that going around this year and Friday was our day at the barrel. Fishing continues to be decent with a tough day mixed in here and there. There are still fish up the bay and we’re still seeing some pre-spawn fish, so we should have big fish for a while.

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I need a couple of people for my morning trip this Friday! I am a couple of people short and the trip needs a little help. Give me a call if interested!

Pics of 12 beautiful ladies fishing on the Pelican and weekend fishing report coming tomorrow morning!

Overall, fishing was not great this weekend, but we really kicked butt! Limits on all trips, despite the fact that many boats out of Solomons struggled and caught only 1-4 fish per trip. We averaged 8, and I was super-psyched. Dave was with me on Saturday and was a big help. He made a huge difference.

Days like today are why I do this job. Flat seas again, and big fish jumping on the boat!