Capt. Pete Ide, Charter Fishing, Solomons, MD

Fishing has been good all week, mainly for 2-4 pound fish, with a few 10-15 pounders mixed in. I also heard of the first good croaker catch of the year. A captain I know caught about 100 last night.

Last week, we put an old superstition to the ultimate test. Many of you know I don’t buy into the bananas-on-the-boat-are-bad-luck school of thought. In the past I’ve had a smattering of bananas on the boat. In fact, I often bring them myself. Though I haven’t compiled any scientific data, I’ve never noticed any correlation between the presence of bananas and the lack of fish or some kind of injury to the crew or mechanical failure. That said, a crew recently showed up with more bananas (seen below) than I’ve ever seen in one place (seriously) outside a market. Well, also seen below are the results of that expedition. Now the cynic would argue that we would have caught far more and far larger fish had we been sans bananas, but for myself, I was pretty happy and took away from the experience that in no way are bananas on the boat bad luck!

Also, check us out fishing in the monsoons of last week.

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That day offered proof of an old adage; the fish don’t care if it’s raining, they’re already wet!

Fishing has been great this week. We knocked out two limits today in no time, and not far at all from Solomons. I’m really impressed at the way it’s holding up this year. I’m thinking the cool weather has something to do with it.

The jet crew came back from Frederick this year. It’s lots of fun just to go to the airport to pick them up and watch them land and take off.

The 18-inch, two-fish season comes in Monday. I’m wondering if we will be able to catch our slot fish.

Make sure to check us out on Facebook. I’m going to work a lot harder at keeping up with that page.

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Trophy season is rolling right along. Fishing has generally been great with a few exceptions. Check out the whopper that was in the 40-pound range! Sorry I don’t have more to say right now, but I have been working like a dog and I’m BEAT!

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Finally! A new report…

Well, if you haven’t noticed, it’s been pretty hot. I have been primarily night fishing for croaker, and that’s been pretty good. We are fishing up near the mouth of the Choptank River and we’re catching some of the biggest croaker we’ve seen in years. Some nights are better than others, but it’s generally been pretty good.

Rockfish have been pretty dependable recently. The past several years we have been live-bait fishing by now, but that hasn’t been consistent enough this year, so we’ve stuck with trolling. Most of the rock are between 18 and 24 inches or 2-4 pounds.

The spot are practically nowhere to be found so far. It’s a bit of a mystery. Perhaps we won’t have them at all this year.

There are plenty of blues around, especially in the evening, if people want them.

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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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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.

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